Meet Maddie
My name’s Maddie. I grew up watching my hometown in South Australia dry up. Now I’m fighting for a future where my home and community can survive the climate crisis.
I grew up in one of the driest states on the driest continent – Barngarla Country in Port Lincoln, South Australia.
In making this complaint, I want to try to represent some of the voices of the incredible communities of young people across Southern Australia who have also been deprived of their rights to life.
These days, I live in nipaluna/Hobart in lutruwita/Tasmania. I often joke that I moved here as a climate refugee, but it’s the truth. Many young people, like me, have left South Australia, looking for a climate safe future.
I worry about my hometown – how much hotter will it get? Will it become unliveable? And how will communities survive without our government taking meaningful action?
Water is life, and it’s a major determiner in my life decisions. In my short lifetime, I’ve watched the land get drier, soil salinity rise, erosion take hold. I’ve fled from unbearable heatwaves. Bushfires risk is now front of mind.
I’m deeply worried about what’s coming. The Australian government isn’t prepared for the extreme climate events we know are getting worse. I fear what that means for my home and the people who live there.
The sense of impending climate collapse is overwhelming – it weighs on me every day. The government’s failure to act on climate has impacted major life decisions – like whether to have children. I don’t consider this world to be a climate safe environment to bring them into. Climate distress substantially impairs my overall psychological, mental, emotional and hence physical wellbeing.
I find it devastating and disheartening that our elected institutions have completely failed to recognise the profound existential threat posed to younger generations by climate change, nor take appropriate action to respond to it.
We are part of a generation with unprecedented access to information about the crisis, yet we often feel powerless to drive meaningful change. This distress can consume mental and emotional energy, sometimes leaving people paralyzed and unable to feel empowered to take control of their own lives.
Climate change isn’t just another issue; it underpins every facet of our lives. Without addressing it, we jeopardize the very foundation of human wellbeing, especially young people like me.
I find it devastating and disheartening that our elected institutions have completely failed to recognise the profound existential threat posed to younger generations by climate change, nor take appropriate action to respond to it.
I feel drawn to make a statement to the UN Special Rapporteur because it feels like as a young Australian, there aren’t many readily available avenues where we can advocate for our rights and our future.
I am grateful for the collective Australian rights to participate in the electoral system, but unfortunately, our elected governments have continuously failed to act on the environmental crises we face. So, I turn to international law as a means of holding our government accountable for their failures.
I refuse to just accept a future of destruction when those in power can act now to change it.
