On Monday, I stood beside Senator David Pocock as together, we launched a campaign to legislate a duty of care owed by the government to young people, to ensure our health and wellbeing is taken into consideration when decisions that could cause climate harm are made.
In the mural hall at parliament house, I was facing cameras and journalists, knowing I should’ve been frantically going over my words to make sure I got them right when I stepped up to the microphones..
But my mind was wandering.
I was thinking about how just over a year ago, I’d been sitting on the floor of the Federal Court in Sydney with my amazing young climate activist friends, as our hearts collectively broke as the court overturned this duty of care on appeal from the government. I was remembering how we’d squeezed each other’s hands tight, took deep and shuddering breaths together. And how we’d cried together after, at the collective disappointment that one of the country’s highest legal institutions had looked young people in the eye and refused to hand down a judgement for the safety of their futures.
I was thinking about how a month ago, I had the privilege of visiting communities just recently devastated by twin cyclones in Vanuatu. I was thinking about the young girls and boys I’d met there, who took me around their villages and into their homes, played soccer with me and braided my hair, who told me stories about their lives and their dreams. We shared laughs, interspersed with stories about the cyclone, and it was clear to me how intertwined with their lives the issue of climate change really is. Before I left, these young children made a promise to me that they would stay safe when the next cyclone hit. They wrote their names on a piece of paper that I still carry with me in my phone case today.
I was thinking about young children I’ve seen grow up in my home community of India, and I was thinking about my friends who stood on the other side of the camera watching and smiling as I stepped up to the cameras, ready to speak about why our futures need to be taken specifically into consideration when decisions about climate change are made.
Recent years have been characterised by climate disaster at an unprecedented rate. Records that should never be touched are being broken. Just in the past few months, heatwaves have subsumed Europe and South America, while India suffers through floods, amidst news that the gulf stream could collapse as early as 2025. Twenty-one of the 30 hottest days on record have taken place during the last month.
Standing there, my mind recounting all these young people I’d had the privilege to meet, learn from and call my friends, it was more clear to me than ever that the burden of climate change is not one distributed equitably. As climate impacts increase in severity, and natural disasters become more and more frequent, it’s the lives of young people that will be most impacted.
Despite the overwhelming and distressing climate news that seems to be everywhere at the moment, it continues to be young people leading the charge for greater climate action. Instead of falling victim to doomism and becoming apathetic, young people are continuing to find new and creative ways to hold their governments and big polluters accountable to climate harm.
This bill, for a duty of care owed by the government to young people, is just another example of young people stepping up to the mark.
Now, it’s time for our governments to come to the table and negotiate in good faith with those who have long advocated for a safe and liveable future for young people.
In the media and in parliament, the Labor party has continued to pat themselves on the back for ending the climate wars and increasing Australia’s climate ambition. Yet, their actions are in clear contrast to their words, having used their time in government to approve new fossil fuel projects, approve expansions and new exploration areas, and funnel taxpayer money towards these operations. Their rhetoric has not been matched by satisfactory action.
This bill offers the government a chance to change that. A chance to demonstrate their commitment to handing my generation, and those that will come after, a future not earmarked by natural disasters of terrifying frequency and severity, a future that fulfils the principle of intergenerational equity.
It’s a humble ask, one that should have to go unsaid. Years of climate denial and millions of dollars in fossil fuel donations have brought us to this point, but this bill is a chance to change that. All that’s left is for Plibersek, Bowen and Albanese to come to the table.
You can support Anjali Sharma’s campaign by signing this petition.