We know this. And yet, we haven't acknowledged it in legislation. This must change.
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I am no stranger to the spiral of doom that inevitably follows a skim of the morning headlines. Perhaps that is a burden this privilege of youth must carry – the emotion in the immediacy of the world’s crises. Even so, the headlines of Wednesday, September 23 packed a visceral punch.
Anjali Sharma speaks with Sunday Life about her journey as a trailblazer for her legal advocacy but also for her ability to inspire others to take action.
Several high profile Australians including Emma McKeon, Tim Winton, Grace Tame and Professor Fiona Stanley have signed an open letter urging the government to legislate a climate-related duty of care for future generations.
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A Labor-led Senate committee has rejected a bill that would compel law makers to consider the health and wellbeing of young people when making decisions that could cause climate harm.
Catherine Pendrey is sitting on a panel of four medical professionals, giving evidence to the Senate Committee for Environment and Communications. She’s 38 weeks pregnant and everyone in the room feels the significance of what she is saying. “It’s absolutely the case,” Dr Pendrey says, “that the health of a child born today will be defined by climate change.”
Ms Sharma believes the world, her future, is on the brink of a climate disaster and it's her right – duty even – to try to pull it back.
A teenage activist leading the call for governments to legislate a duty to consider the impacts of climate change says Labor can’t just rest on its laurels as she pushes for further action.
As a prominent voice for the climate rights of her generation, Sharma was recognised as the 2023 Emerging Leader in Climate & Sustainability at the Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards in October with judges noting her particular brand of “courageous leadership”.
On July 31, the last day of the hottest month in Earth’s recorded history, at a press conference in Parliament House, Anjali Sharma stood with ACT independent senator David Pocock and others – including a nine-year old girl holding a toy unicorn – to announce a new bill.
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.
An independent senator hopes to convince the federal parliament to consider giving the federal government a duty of care to protect young people from climate change when assessing fossil fuel projects.
Should the government have a duty of care to protect young people and future generations from climate harm? Independent Senator David Pocock believes so, and is introducing a bill to federal parliament this week that would make it a requirement.
Reconciling the euphoric image I have of my home country, carefully cultivated over these journeys home, with headlines that completely shatter it, is hard. Knowing that the country, the people and stories that have made and remade me are in the grip of yet another catastrophe that receives minimal attention, is simply distressing.
I’m a first-time voter. I’ll be voting for the climate, as will hundreds of thousands of young people like myself. The ball is in the court of both major parties. Show us you won’t be putting profit over people’s lives. We’re waiting.
I don’t know what you think this whole climate action thing is, but if you were wondering, it’s not a passion project. It’s not an extracurricular activity or community service hours for the resume … it is a responsibility.
Following last week’s ruling by the Federal Court in that the Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, does not owe a duty of care to Australia’s children, we might now ask whether it’s time that Australia catches up with the rest of the world in recognising a right to a healthy environment.
The Federal Court on Tuesday overturned a previous ruling that Environment Minister Sussan Ley had a duty of care to children when approving coal mines. The leader of the action, teenage climate change activist Anjali Sharma, says she will continue fighting for protection from global warming.
In the ultimate analysis, what is the point of our law, if not to protect Australians from the most significant existential risk ever faced? What is the point of our constitution if Australia becomes all-but uninhabitable – a land of fire, flood and drought?
Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley is “committed to protecting the environment for current and future generations”, despite a court ruling the Minister does not have a duty of care to protect young Australians from harm caused by climate change.
Ley’s successful appeal is disappointing. As legal scholars, we believe the judgment sets back the cause of climate litigation in Australia by two decades, at a time when we urgently need climate action to accelerate.
The Federal Court on Tuesday ruled the government has no duty of care to protect children from the impacts of climate change when considering fossil fuel projects. But the teenagers who brought the class action against the environment minister say they're not giving up.
Eight teenagers and a nun had previously won their case against the federal environment minister related to the expansion of a NSW coalmine
Growing up, children are told to take losing graciously because winning isn’t everything. But in this case, it felt like winning was everything. We lost, and I’m angry. I’m angry, and so devastated.
In a world first, the federal court ruled that the government had a duty of care towards young people in relation to climate change impacts. Sharma’s ability to mobilise, take action and get results is impressive, and cements her place as leader in the youth fight for climate action.
In Australia, children have also been mobilising for climate justice. Many young people are pressuring the government to protect their future and the world they live in. But is it too late to act?
Anjali Sharma has been named as a finalist for the international Children’s Climate Prize, in recognition of her work leading other students in a class action against the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley.
Anjali Sharma, a Melbourne teenager made headlines with her Federal Court battle against Australia’s environment minister Sussan Ley for seeking an injunction for a coal mining project in New South Wales.
With a short reading to the court, Justice Mordecai Bromberg formalised into law that Australia’s environment minister had a duty of care to “avoid causing personal injury or death” not just to Sharma and her friends – but all Australians under 18 – “arising from emissions of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere”.
Today, in the Federal Court, eight children, led by myself as lead litigant, have filed a class action against the Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, arguing that she has a Duty of Care to protect us from the impacts of climate change.
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