Highlights
- Indian-born teen activist Anjali Sharma takes up Australia’s climate fight
- Group of teenagers files lawsuit against federal environment minister Sussan Ley
- ‘Minister had a duty of care towards young people while exercising her powers to approve a new coal project’: Federal Court
For Anjali Sharma, a high school student of Melbourne’s Huntingtower School, climate change is an important issue.
The 17-year-old has made headlines not only for being a young climate change activist, but also for taking Australia’s environment minister to court in a class action suit over a mining project in New South Wales.
Her story gains relevance in the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released on 9 August which has sounded an alarm about global temperatures increasing by 1.5°C by 2030 rather than the 2018 estimate of 2050.
Ms Sharma, who migrated from India to Australia as a nine-month-old baby with her parents, became curious about climate change after she saw her family in India grapple with severe flooding in 2017.
“I started doing my own research by reading articles, news, watching videos. I came to know how it was affecting some parts of the world more than others and that India will be the country that would be hit the hardest.
“I saw my family in India deal with the effects of climate change and severe floods. It really made me angry that Australia, as a country, was not doing the things it should be doing to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change,” Ms Sharma told SBS Hindi.
It was last year when Ms Sharma, along with seven other Australian teenagers, filed a lawsuit against federal environment minister Sussan Ley, seeking to halt the approval given to the Whitehaven Coal mine’s Vickery Extension Project in New South Wales.
Sharma's climate change activism in Australia has come under the spotlight. Source: Supplied by Anjali Sharma
The case, Sharma and Others v Minister for the Environment, was managed by Equity Generation Lawyers and supported by an 86-year-old nun, Sister Brigid Arthur, who was her litigation guardian. The case sought an injunction from the federal court to block the expansion of the mine.
The claimants contended that the environment minister had a duty of care to avoid causing injury to young people while exercising her powers to approve a new coal project.
The group argued that the million-dollar project near Gunnedah, will extract an estimated 33 million tonnes of coal over a period of 25 years and release around 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Other teenagers in the litigation are Ambrose, Ava, Bella, Izzy, Laura, Luca, Tom and Veronica.
After hearing the cases for four days in March, Justice Mordecai Bromberg found last month that Minister Ley did have a duty of care to protect young people from climate change.
“The [Minister for the Environment] has a duty to take reasonable care, in the exercise of her powers under s 130 and s 133 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) in respect of referral EPBC No. 2016/7649, to avoid causing personal injury or death to persons who were under 18 years of age and ordinarily resident in Australia at the time of the commencement of this proceeding arising from emissions of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere,” Justice Bromberg’s judgment stated.
However, Justice Bromberg refused to grant an injunction to block the expansion of the mine because the minister hadn’t yet made a decision to approve the mine, so any injunction would be pre-emptive and the court would need to consider the minister’s reasons for any approval before deciding whether the minister had breached her duty to take reasonable care.
Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Source: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Ms Sharma told SBS Hindi that she was happy with the judgment though “it was disappointing to know that the environment minister was now going to appeal the decision”.
A spokesperson for the environment minister confirmed to SBS Hindi that the minister had lodged a notice of appeal, seeking an expedited hearing.
The spokesperson added that while this matter was before the courts, it was not appropriate to comment on the details of the case.
“The Minister takes seriously her responsibilities under the Act to protect the environment and, in doing so, the interests of all Australians,” the spokesperson stated.
According to Ms Sharma, her battle against climate change started two years ago and has not been an easy one to deal with.
The class action against the environment minister was launched in September last year. Sharma is spearheading the campaign. Source: Supplied by Anjali Sharma
“The first few times when we organised such climate change strikes, we received significant support from all over. But now it has gone down in impact and people are not following it the way they were last time,” Ms Sharma said, adding that she had full support from her parents after initial hesitation to lodge the lawsuit.
“At first, my parents wanted me to focus on my studies but later, they realised that I was too passionate and serious about it. So, now I have their full support and they are proud of my work,” she added.
Ms Sharma, however, feels there is a lack of information on climate change from schools.
“Schools teach about climate change at a macro level, but they do not inform us how governments are in partnership with these big energy companies, which is destroying the environment,” Ms Sharma said.
She wants to continue to mobilise students across the country to join her battle for a better future for the younger generations “as the world belongs to them”.
For now, Ms Sharma is focussing on school and aspires to study environmental laws.
