An awareness walk will be carried out from Vikas Bhawan. As many as 1,500 employees of various government departments like labour, Vikas Bhawan, commercial and tax and health are expected to take part in this initiative

President of UP Commercial Tax Ministerial Staff Association Bhupesh Awasthi said hundreds of employees working in various state government departments have decided to stop driving vehicles for a day.

"This may not totally change the scenario but create awareness among the masses. We will also request the civic body to clear the footpaths from encroachments for people to walk freely," he added.

Students of various schools took out an awareness rally. On Monday, events at schools will include poster and slogan writing competitions.

The theme of this year's Earth Day is 'The face of climate change'. It aims to unite people around the globe into a powerful call to action.

Climate change is one of the biggest environmental threats to food production, water availability, forest biodiversity and livelihood and it will impact developing countries such as India more severely than the developed countries, said an environmentalist. The change will be most severe in the next 30-40 years, equivalent to the change over the past 100 years.

"Due to climate change, irregular rainfall pattern will develop, if farmers are not able to harvest the optimum output from agricultural land, there are chances of agriculture being abandoned in many vulnerable areas of the state. The possibility of farmers getting engaged in off-farm activities will increase in such areas and consequently, the pressure on cities will increase. The migration from rural areas is already visible," said Anirudh Dubey, agro-meteorologist at Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology.

There is an urgent need to protect the ozone layer from further depletion. This can be done by planting more and more saplings and stop rigid use of natural resources.