Dedicated environmentalist Anjali Appadurai seeks the leadership of the B.C. NDP

She's the first candidate who seems prepared to take on former attorney general David Eby

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      There's a second candidate in the race to replace John Horgan as leader of the B.C. NDP.

      Anajli Appadurai has put "BCNDP Leadership Candidate" on her Twitter profile.

      Appadurai, a longtime environmental activist, was the federal NDP candidate in Vancouver-Granville in the 2021 election, losing narrowly to Taleeb Noormohamed.

      "We need a leader who puts the health of people and the planet first," the message reads on anjaliforbc.ca. "Anjali brings honesty, courage and a new vision for BC."

      The website urges people to become a B.C. NDP member before September 4 to be able to support her candidacy.

      Anyone 12 years of age or older who is a B.C. resident can join the party and vote for her.

      "The stakes couldn't be higher," the website states.

      The only declared candidate to date has been former attorney general David Eby, who claims to have the support of 48 members of the provincial NDP caucus.

      Appadurai previously worked as a climate-justice campaigner with Sierra Club B.C.

      Last year, she cowrote an article on Straight.com highlighting how badly B.C. has fared in comparison to western industrialized countries in addressing greenhouse-gas emissions.

      "Despite its reputation as an environmental leader, British Columbia is not doing its part to change that," Appadurai and coauthor Jens Wieting wrote. "Instead, the province continues subsidizing fracking, clearcutting of the last carbon-rich old-growth, building the destructive $16-billion dollar Site C dam, trampling on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and limiting British Columbians’ ability to finance effective climate action.

      "Like Canada’s, B.C.’s provincial emissions have stayed consistently high," they continued. "Also like Canada’s, B.C.’s weak climate targets are inconsistent with the goal of the Paris Agreement, and they are insufficient and inadequately funded."

      Anjali Appadurai's 2021 article included this graphic, showing how badly B.C. has performed in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

      In 2020, Appadurai appeared in the documentary The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, by B.C. filmmakers Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan.

      The film highlighted growing links between anticorporate activism and electoral politics, which is demonstrated by the political rise of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Barcelona mayor Adu Colau, and Seattle councilmember Kshama Sawant.

      Appadurai first burst to public prominence in 2011 as a youth delegate at the UN Climate Summit in Durban.

      "Long-term thinking is not radical," Appadurai said in a fiery speech at the time. "What’s radical is to completely alter the planet’s climate, to betray the future of my generation and to condemn millions to death by climate change. What is radical is to write off the fact that change is within reach."

      Video: Watch Anjali Appadurai's speech at the 2011 UN Climate Conference.

      Appadurai has launched her campaign one day after the heaviest rains in recorded history walloped Seoul, South Korea.

      Update

      Anjali Appadurai put out this tweet after this article was written.

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