Sapna signifies a dream in many South Asian languages. It stands for our vision for climate solutions grounded in justice and the hope of a global climate movement that tells stories of South Asia.

A South Asian collective for Climate Justice in Australia

Sapna is a collective for climate justice in the South Asian diaspora in Australia. We are an intergenerational group of activists, artists, writers and scholars, who have come together to create platforms and share stories of South Asian climate impacts and climate justice. We live and work on uncededed lands of Australia’s First Nations peoples and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.

We are concerned about the threat of climate change to people and the natural environment and Australia’s role in worsening it by continuing to extract coal and gas which need to be phased out. And we feel the urgency to share stories of communities and struggles for climate justice in South Asia, one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change. With links both in South Asian climate movements and climate activism in Australia, we aim to create a bridge for South Asian communities to global platforms and share their stories, struggles and visions. And we aspire to diversify climate activism in Australia through supporting and strengthening participation and leadership from the South Asian diaspora.

Acting by acknowledging past injustices

We are based in the industrialised world that is historically responsible for global warming. Australia in particular, goes further. Australia is the biggest exporter of coal globally despite the need to phase out coal to stop dangerous climate change. Australia is ranked last for climate action amongst 193 member countries of the United Nations but shifts the emissions blame on developing countries. Living in Australia with families in South Asia, we witness climate hazards in both places, through worsening bushfires in Australia, and devastating cyclones, floods, and heatwaves and water scarcity, in South Asia. We feel the urgency to expose Australia’s lack of responsibility and demand accountability.

Australia was also founded on colonisation and capitalism driven by violent dispossessions and genocide of First Nations people. We stand in solidarity with past and present struggles of Indigenous Australians and First Nations people around the world against colonialism, mining and fossil fuels, and future impacts from climate change on land, culture and well-being. Living in the developed world, we benefit from industrialisation and globalisation. But many communities in South Asia continue to live with such intergenerational struggles and are now vulnerable to climate hazards. Our solidarity with South Asia acknowledges the continuing struggles of communities and aims to make the global climate justice narrative intersectional with their visions for a just future.

Our Principles

Our work is powered by:

• Establishing lasting relations with South Asian movements
• Education in the climate movement of Global North-South differences and what constitutes justice for South Asian communities
• Acknowledging what we take for granted, living on unceded Indigenous lands
• Engagement to foster connection in the diaspora to the climate crisis in South Asia and consider our role as global South Asians in tackling it.
• Intergenerational learning and community-building within Sapna