"Another story from the Maldives is also heartbreaking," she continued. "As is known to all, the Maldives is another island country averaging one meter above sea level. Therefore its territory shrinks as the sea level rises. The student from the Maldives has moved three times – not because she was moving to a better house, but because her former home had flooded."

A student from Greenland, meanwhile, told Li that the island's culture is concentrated around the Arctic Circle.

"As global warming worsens, the Greenland ice sheet is losing mass and melting, thus their culture will melt with the ice one day," Li said. "Thanks to these stories, I felt much more than I do in the classroom. They deepened my understanding of climate change."

Five Chinese students took part in the forum with their advice – "Climate change education should be a mandatory and substantial area of the school curriculum" – which was included in the declaration.

"In Copenhagen, I exchanged and communicated a lot with local students and joined them for their required course on environmental protection," Li said. "In China, we only learn a little about environmental protection from geography class – there is no required course on the subject. Therefore, we made a proposal asking all countries to include climate change as part of compulsory education."

A climate ambassador

Talking about being selected to attend such a significant forum, Li recalled how the story began in 2007.

Li went to the United States in 2007 as an exchange student, during which time she attended the 2007 Nobel Conference as a student delegate. The topic of that year's conference was global warming and the energy crisis. From then on, Li became attached to the topic of climate change.

In 2009, Li participated in the Climate Cool campus greening program, which has been run by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy (Embassy CES) along with the China Science and Technology Exchange Center (CSTEC) since 2007.

"I took part in the campaign this year, and the topic for our research team was the utilization and popularization of wind energy in cities," Li told Beijing Review.

Due to her excellent performance on this research project, Li's school recommended her to attend an interview at the British Embassy, which selected her as one of three 2009 International Climate Champions (ICC) from China. They were among 27 young delegates from 14 countries who traveled to Edinburgh, UK for a week-long summit on climate change that was considered a training camp for COP15.

When Li returned to China, she continued to participate in environmental protection campaigns with the other ICCs. Moreover, she received British Environment Minister Ed Miliband when he visited China in May 2009.

"We conducted publicity activities together in Jing Shan Park, including an interesting one about calculating our own carbon emissions. As for the minister, he felt sorry about his plane to China releasing so much carbon dioxide. But he claimed that he would pay more attention to this problem in future," Li said. "Furthermore, we built a tree out of cardboard and decorated it with 'leaves' made from recycled paper we had collected, writing down our commitments to climate change on those leaves. The activity affected every participant more or less."

As a part of the 2009 Climate Cool campaign, a meeting announcing the results of a survey of young people's opinions on climate change was held at the Beijing Planetarium. Li was invited to the meeting as an expert.

"The questionnaires showed that '80s young people have only a surface understanding of climate change – most of them do not realize the relationship between climate change and their daily lives," Li said. "Thus, I made a proposal at the meeting to discuss how young people should learn about climate change and what changes they can make in their own lives."

In June 2009, Li took part in a climate change summer camp held by Embassy CES, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the United Nations Children's Fund. Seventy young people ages 14 to 17, from different parts of China, participated in the camp. Related experts followed Li and other participants closely and graded their performance in various areas, such as PR ability and management skills. The top five candidates during the trials would attend the Children's Climate Forum in Copenhagen, and Li's performance was ranked number one.

A 'subtraction lifestyle'

In her daily life, Li always insists on living a "subtraction lifestyle." She believes that this kind of life is more effective than a "low-carbon life" in terms of environmental protection.

In school, Li threw herself into the research of wind energy for Climate Cool, meanwhile publicizing information related to climate change to everyone around her.

"I encouraged others to ride a bike or take the bus or subway to school every day in order to reduce carbon emissions," she said. "More specifically, I ride a bike to school every day and take the bus or subway when I go out. I try to take taxis as seldom as I can. If I have to, I will share a taxi with other people."

In addition, Li's school is the demonstration school for recycling-after-sorting. There are two garbage bins in each classroom for sorting and recycling. Last March, the school organized an activity to collect electronic garbage from students, such as discarded mobile phones, mp3 players and batteries, and then recycle it appropriately. Moreover, graded, unstapled examination papers will be collected for use as notepaper, to conserve the use of paper and metal.

Li adheres to her "subtraction lifestyle" at home as well. She and her family all make an effort to conserve water in their daily lives, especially since Beijing, the city they live in, is facing a water shortage. For instance, Li reuses the water they use to wash vegetables to water flowers, wipe the floor or clean the toilet.

"My father also works for environmental protection," Li said with a smile. "Whenever I take a shower, my father measures the time outside the bathroom and starts to talk about the principles of environmental protection after five minutes in order to remind me of the time limit on my bath-time. Under this family 'policy', my bath-time has never been over six minutes."

Furthermore, Li and her family always separate out recyclables from their living waste, reducing resource waste. For example, after finishing magazines, they lend them to parking lot security guards and cleaning workers to read, and then sell the magazines as waste.

"In fact, environmental protection can be carried out in every little bit of your life," Li said. "Tackling climate change is not only a big project for governments, but also the little practices everyone can adopt in their daily lives."

As for her environmental protection plan in 2010, Li said her focus is still to tackle climate change and endeavor to establish climate change education as part of the country's compulsory education system. Her school research team on wind energy will also continue its work. The team plans to install a wind power generator as soon as possible in order to provide the school with electricity for lighting.

"I believe that small deeds can make a big difference in combating climate change," Li said. "I hope that in 2010 I can influence more people and invite them to join us, practicing their small deeds and tackling climate change together."

To read the declaration of the Children's Climate Forum, visit www.unicef.org/media/media_51997.html