I’m thrilled that my close friend and co-MEP Jean Lambert is playing a key role in Subhas Dutta’s efforts to establish an Indian Green Party. The two met in London yesterday as part of Subha’s two week European trip to discuss how to create a unified Green movement in India. As is the case throughout the global South, the challenge is one of successfully combining social justice with sustainability.

When you have a third of a billion people below the poverty line, what place is there for environmentalism?Tackling social injustice lies at the heart of both the Green Party of England and Wales’ and Subhas’ motivation.

These two issues are interlinked at the most basic of levels – and have never been so easily observable as in the unevenly felt effects of climate change

Rising sea levels across India’s 7500 Km long, densely populated coast line, the flooding of mangrove plantations, coral bleaching, extreme weather events, glacial lake outflow floods affecting downstream villages, melting glaciers affecting water resources and falls in agriculture productivity collectively spell disaster for India’s citizens… but none are more vulnerable than those least able to adapt – those below the poverty line.

An Indian Green Party has the potential to remove the scepticism which comes from Western calls for carbon-cuts so often steeped in hypocrisy and grow a movement which encourages righting social injustice through truly sustainable development.