The drought is creeping right up to our front door steps. Months and months without rain in regional Australia, following the hottest summer on record and now, even Sydney is feeling the impact with water restrictions imposed for the first time in a decade.

These climate change impacts are the exact reason why my fellow students and I have been taking to the streets this year to demand that the federal government stops turning a blind eye to what is going on around us.

A car-charging station at Tesla\'s wind and solar battery plant outside of Jamestown, South Australia. Credit:AAP

I am in my HSC year at school. One of my courses is law, in which we study human rights. The right to a safe, healthy and ecologically balanced environment is promoted by the UN’s environment program. All states have an obligation to protect the environment as “a prerequisite for the enjoyment of human rights”, according to the UN.

But we, as a country, are having these rights blatantly ignored. Our environment is being degraded as continually rising carbon emissions heat up our world. Man-made climate change is having a worsening impact on our land and influencing more frequent and extreme weather events, such as the prolonged drought that we are experiencing now.