Climate change activist on hunger strike marks major milestone outside Parliament House - as he makes startling admission about his health

A climate change activist on a hunger strike outside Parliament House has reached a major milestone while admitting he feels his health fading. 

Gregory Andrews, who previously served as Australia's ambassador to West Africa, started his protest on November 1 outside of Parliament House in Canberra.

Mr Andrews reached a new milestone on Thursday after entering his 15th day of the hunger strike insisting he won't give up until his demands for climate action are met.

'I'm declining a bit, but I'm not giving up. I'm just having to lie down a lot more and save my breath,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday. 

'My body's starting to feel the impact of not eating for over two weeks... my arms and legs are aching, but I'm doing my best to stick it out here.'

Mr Andrews said he has been getting some medical care as the 55-year-old undertakes the dangerous protest.

The father-of-two has a pre-existing heart condition and has lost more than nine kilos since commencing his hunger strike. 

'The Parliament House has a nurse and she just came down with the Federal Police who have been really supportive and monitoring me closely,' Mr Andrews said.

'She just checked all of my vitals.' 

Hunger strikes can lead to permanent damage to the body and possible organ failure as well as death.  

Mr Andrews reiterated his five demands, which need to be met before he will end his protest. 

He has called for an end to subsidies for fossil fuels, phasing out coal and gas exports, ending the logging of native forests and releasing the National Security Climate Risk findings.

Mr Andrews also wants Australia's Environment Protection Diversity Act to be amended to include climate impacts. 

Despite only consuming water and a few teaspoons of salt in the past 14 days, he said he was not hungry.

'We need to stop fossil fuel subsidies, stop fossil fuel exports, stop native forest logging,' Mr Andrews said.

'We need to include climate change in our environment protection law and the Prime Minister has to be transparent about the risks to Australia of climate change.'

Mr Andrews revealed that Greens senator David Shoebridge had visited him earlier on Thursday morning and tried to convince him to end his action. 

'He told me that the entire Greens party room fully backs all of my five demands, but also asked me to give up and let the people in Parliament House deal with this issue.

'But I can't do that because the people in Parliament House have been arguing and fiddling around on it for 20 years and haven't dealt with it.

'So I thanked him for agreeing with all of my concerns, but I couldn't really accept that.

'It would not be OK just to leave it to the politicians because they haven't really done what they need to do,' he said. 

When asked how far he is willing to take his protest, if he is actually willing to die for it, Mr Andrews explained the deep rooted reasons behind his action. 

'I don't want to die. I don't even want to be doing this hunger strike,' he said. 

'But three to six billion people on the planet will be at risk of death by the end of this century (from climate change) and my kids will be alive then.

'So, I don't want to (be on hunger strike, but) I'm gonna do this for as long as it takes and for as long as my body will allow me.'

When asked how his family feels about his hunger strike, Mr Andrews had an emotional response. 

'I'm not talking about my family. It's a reasonable question. But unfortunately, early on, a journalist, Andrew Bolt, really behaved in an undignified way and savaged my daughter. 

'And so I need to protect them. I want to protect them from climate change, which is why I'm doing this, but I need to protect their pride, dignity.'

The former diplomat pointed out that Thursday is the last sitting day of parliament. 'They'll be flying out tonight, but I'll still be here,' he said.

'I feel like I've really raised a lot of attention, and some pretty important people have come down, talked to me and to encourage me.'