Dev Karan recalls the first time he saw a purple pond, "filled with dyes and chemicals, and choked with plastic".

"It was heart-wrenching," the 17-year-old from Haryana state in northern India told AFP in an interview.

That sight during a school trip two years ago made him realise that "the climate crisis is happening everywhere".

He decided he had to act.

Speaking on the sidelines of the annual Young Activists Summit (YAS) at the United Nations in Geneva, Karan described his path to becoming the youngest of five laureates at this year's event.

He won on Thursday for his efforts to restore India's traditional ponds, which help prevent floods and soil erosion by storing water.

Ponds are "often used by villages as a source of drinking water during droughts, help in carbon sequestration

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