Why I'm taking the Albanese Government to the UN
by Sama Youhana
Twenty-one-year-old university student, Sama Youhana, is one of 10 Australians who have filed a human rights case against the federal government, alleging that by continuing to support coal and gas exports, it has failed to protect them from the harms of climate change.
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In 2022, during my final year of high school, I, alongside my family, lived through the Brisbane floods.
We live just across the road from the river, with no properties between us and the water. We watched the river slowly rise over days and no one anticipated how bad it would get. In the middle of the night, water started coming up through our garage and suddenly everyone was rushing to move what they could.
That night was one of the most anxious nights of my life - so bad that I set an alarm every 30 minutes to wake up and check the water levels. I was scared for my family and worried about where we would go if the water kept rising. I kept thinking about losing everything we had.
The water had consumed most of our garage, and that’s where the water levels peaked. After the floodwaters receded, we were without power for a week. Our garage was filled with dirty, murky water and mould. We had to throw out so many things: clothes, furniture, even our washing machine and dining table.
Everyone on my street was flooded and we all came together during the clean up. School was cancelled for a few days and once it was safe to go back, we were expected to just move on - but what I came to realise is that no 17-year-old should have to experience flooding one day, and go to school the next. No young person should have to normalise climate change.
This realisation pushed me to take action after graduating high school. I became involved with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) as a way to process what I’d been through, connect with others, and to take meaningful, ambitious action.
Being surrounded by young people who care about climate harm opens your eyes to the expansive threat that climate change poses. Meeting the other claimants reaffirmed this feeling - it’s people from all walks of life being impacted already.
On the flip-side, being part of the AYCC has shown me that young people are powerful. We’re deeply invested in acting on the climate crisis and calling out our government to take stronger action, because it threatens the very lives we are growing into.
We’re already experiencing growing uncertainty and extreme weather changes, yet state governments are teaming up with the federal government to expand coal and gas projects across Australia. In my home state Queensland, the Albanese Government approved multiple coal mine extensions this year, with one extension seeing 85m tonnes of coal exported over 24 years.
It feels like with every approval, our government is choosing to abandon young people and our livelihoods. It felt this way too, going to Parliament, supposedly ‘the people’s house’ with the other claimants. Sharing our stories is a very vulnerable thing to do. We’re going to the government with the fires and floods we experienced firsthand.
And while our government will hear our stories, you leave feeling like they’re discarding the gravity of the truth they hold. Our stories aren’t isolated events - they’re hard truths, with real impacts. They’re a direct result of this government’s decision to approve, frack and export coal and gas.
This is why I’m one of 10 Australians who have filed a human rights case against the Australian government for failing to protect us from climate pollution by Australia’s coal and gas corporations. I want to show the reality of how climate change is already impacting our lives today, and further threatening our futures tomorrow.
Australia is one of the largest exporters of coal and gas in the world. As that pollution is shipped overseas, our government thinks it’s okay to exclude it from its climate policies and targets. As if it doesn’t count. But the harm does not stay overseas. It returns to us as fires, floods, algal blooms, rising seas and extreme heat - like it did for me and the other claimants.
Living through the floods during such an important time in my life made everything feel unstable and uncertain. It has shaped how I experience every extreme weather event that comes after it. Decision-makers need to understand that climate change is already here, and that the impacts of coal and gas exports are already creeping on the doorsteps of mine and every other young person’s life.
It is young people who will have to live with the consequences of the decisions being made now. And it is decision-makers who need to listen to us.
Our rights and safety need to be taken seriously now, not in the future.
Ten Australians have filed the Hard Truths case with the United Nations Human Rights Committee claiming the Australian Government is violating their human rights by continuing to support coal and gas companies to fuel climate extremes across the country. They are represented by the Human Rights Law Centre, Environmental Justice Australia, and Earthjustice.
About the author
Sama Youhana is a 21-year-old student living in Brisbane, right by the Brisbane River. Born in Auckland to Iraqi-Chaldean parents, she moved to Australia when she was nine and is now studying law and arts at the University of Queensland.
