A GROUP of students from Upton Hall School went to Manchester to take part in 'LiveIt!' - a major national event for sixth formers - backed by Shameless star Gerard Kearns - which put climate change under the spotlight.

Speakers including climate change expert Dr Mike Edwards and Father Chris Gorton from the Salford Diocese will lead discussions on the issues of faith and climate change, and two 18 year-old girls from Guyana travelled specially to give a perspective of how climate change is already affecting their lives.

Pupil Rosie Charsley, 17, from Oxton said: "I have always been interested in charities such as CAFOD and I want to learn how to change my everyday lifestyle in order to benefit others around the world, and hopefully put the skills that I acquire into practise in later life."

Gerard Kearns, who stars in the hit Channel 4 drama Shameless which is set on a fictional Manchester housing estate, has supported CAFOD's work for many years and is backing the LiveIt! event. The 23-year-old recently spent a day giving budding actors from Loreto Sixth Form College in south Manchester tips on performing the climate change play.

"Degrees of Change" tells the story of four teenagers and their responses to climate change-related disasters in developing countries.

It looks at why climate change is an issue of global justice and not just a debate about the science.

Gerard said: "I think the play's brilliant and hopefully it'll inspire people to reduce their carbon footprints, to lobby their MPs to make the Climate Change Bill stronger and to do their bit to help our world."

Some 150,000 people die each year from the effects of climate change - and almost all live in developing countries.

CAFOD, which says it has witnessed the effect climate change is already having on the world's poorest communities, is calling on MPs to support a stronger Bill when it is debated in the House of Commons .