Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate, 25, a practicing Christian, daughter of a Kampala businessman and political leader, organized her first climate justice strike in January 2019, inspired by Greta Thunberg.
Just over a year later, in February 2020, he was, alongside other activists, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to call on governments, companies and banks to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. A photo of the event by the AP (Associated Press) news agency, however, cut Nakate, sparking global outrage and a public retraction from the company.
“You didn’t just delete a photo, you deleted a continent,” she said at the time.
Since then, Nakate has participated in several global climate events, such as the Global Landscapes Forum and Youth4Climate, and received enormous attention from the international press. The activist was also one of the highlights of COP26 (26th UN Conference on Climate Change), last year. “Humanity will not be saved by promises” was one of her most used phrases at the marches in Glasgow.
Nakate, who is part of Fridays for Future Uganda — a movement of young people who, among other activities, skip classes on Fridays to demand actions against the climate crisis in demonstrations — is the founder of the Rise Up Movement, aimed at amplifying voices activists in Africa, and the Vash Green Schools Project, which promotes energy transition in schools in Uganda.
In this interview with Sheetshe talks about the little attention paid to the impacts of the climate crisis in Africa and about the historical responsibility of developed countries for greenhouse gas emissions — these nations, according to her, must establish and finance a specific fund for losses and damages.
According to the latest IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, 2.6 million to 3.4 million new displacements related to the climate crisis occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2018 and 2019 and, with a global warming of 2 .5°C by 2050, 56 million to 86 million people will have to migrate from their countries.
At the end of this month, Nakate returned to the World Economic Forum. This time, she participated in panels on how to turn words into action and on decisive factors for governments and companies to set goals for COP27, a conference that will take place in November in Egypt.
Two years ago, his image was cropped from a photo at the World Economic Forum. What has happened since then in terms of African voices being respected and amplified as part of the global climate debate? We have been working hard to demand more full representation of African voices in the climate movement, in climate spaces, in climate conversations.
We believe that every activist has a story to tell, and every story has a solution to give—and every solution has a life to change.
We also know that the entire African continent is historically responsible for less than 4% of global emissions. So it’s important to have activists, people and communities who are on the front lines of the climate crisis on the front pages of newspapers, and so we are working to ensure that all activists are represented.
African countries are being seriously affected by climate change. What is currently the main focus of the debate on climate change on the continent and in your country? Many communities on the continent are facing some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis and dealing with the aftermath of different weather disasters, from floods to cyclones.
For example, Cyclone Idai [de março de 2019] destroyed much of the African continent and left many people homeless, many people dead and much property destroyed.
We have seen the drought in East Africa, which has left over 26 million people looking for food, many animals starving to death, and so many communities suffering from loss and damage.
As the climate crisis escalates, there are certain things that we cannot adapt to. Communities cannot adapt to hunger. Communities cannot adapt to the loss of their identities, the loss of their cultures, the loss of their histories because of the increase in climate disasters.
So some of the key issues to be addressed as we move towards COP27 is the fact that loss and damage is here with us and it is necessary for developed countries to provide climate finance for adaptation and mitigation. We are still waiting for the US$ 100 billion/year that were promised by developed countries to vulnerable countries.
What are your priorities this year in terms of loss and damage?We know who caused and who needs to pay for the climate crisis. We know the history of global emissions, which were caused by developed countries, by countries in the Global North. It is the responsibility of these countries to pay for the loss and damage of the Global South.
People lose things they cannot get back. I’ll use the easiest example: imagine you grew up in a house and you know that this is your house, your village, your community. But, when your village is under water because of extreme flooding, that’s not something you can take back, you’re going to have to move. And you will lose not only your home, but the stories and memories of that place.
So, as we move towards COP27, one of the things I’m going to focus on will be demanding that climate finance have a separate fund for damages. Fund, not loan, and an additional fund to what has been discussed for adaptation and mitigation [de US$ 100 bilhões/ano].
How representative is Uganda in the African climate debate? We have a number of activists who are working and helping to organize and mobilize the climate movement.
But this is not something we can do alone. African governments have a key role to play in ensuring that our generation has a safe planet in the future.
I have not had any specific engagement with my government, but I know the different things that are being done in the country in terms of restoring wetlands and forest cover, but I also cannot forget about an oil pipeline that is going to be built from Uganda to Tanzania. [projeto da Total, da França, e da China National Offshore Oil Corporation, da China, orçado em US$ 3,5 bilhões, para transportar petróleo bruto de Uganda para um porto na Tanzânia por meio de um oleoduto de 1.443 km].
These are the challenges we see when it comes to our governments. For many people, this is a project that will bring money, or profit, or economic development, but when we analyze the socio-environmental impacts, we see how much ecosystems will be destroyed.
Your life has changed a lot since you became a climate activist. Could you tell us a little about your routine and working with Rise Up Movement?As part of the Rise Up Movement, we do a number of things, like helping to organize and mobilize climate strikes. We also have community projects like the Vash Green Schools Project.
With it we install solar panels and ecological stoves in schools to drive the transition to renewable energy and reduce the firewood that schools use in food preparation. We also work on solar lamp distribution projects for individuals and families.
How have you included gender inequality as part of your activism?In our communities, especially in rural areas, women and girls have a responsibility to provide resources for their families. When water sources dry up, women have to walk long distances to fetch water, for example.
When weather disasters strike, it is often women who are on the front lines. When rural properties are destroyed, it is the hard work of so many women that is reduced to nothing.
And we’ve read and heard a lot about “climate brides,” the girls who have to drop out of school and are forced into early marriages because their parents lost everything because of these weather disasters.
That’s why people need to know that the climate crisis has exacerbated gender inequalities. And it’s very important to us that while we demand climate justice, we also demand gender equality, because there will be no climate justice without gender equality.
In your view, what should happen until the next COP?One of my priorities is to stop new fossil fuel projects as they are exacerbating climate disasters. Because we can’t eat coal, we can’t drink oil and we can’t breathe so-called natural gas.
Another priority is the project to educate girls and empower women. The Drawdown project lists 100 things we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ranked girls’ education and family planning fifth. Because when girls are educated, it doesn’t just benefit the individual, but the community and the world at large.
You once said that issues such as deforestation in the Amazon receive more attention because they are prioritized by the Global North, while others, just as important, such as the destruction of the Congo Basin, are not. What topics should receive more press attention?I think all the issues of communities and countries that are on the front lines of the climate crisis need to get more press coverage. Not just the Amazon rainforest, not just the Congo rainforest. Although the African continent is at the forefront of the climate crisis, it is not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers.
Have you had the opportunity to interact with Fridays For Future activists in Brazil? Do you have plans to visit the country? I would love. I have friends from Fridays For Future Brasil that I worked with. It would be great to go to Brazil.
The Planet in Trance series is supported by the Open Society Foundations.
X-RAY
Vanessa Nakate, 25
A Business and Marketing graduate from Makerere University Business School, the Ugandan climate activist is the author of “A Bigger Picture: My Fight To Bring A New African Voice To The Climate Crisis”. to the Climate Crisis”, not yet published in Brazil) and co-founder of Fridays For Future Uganda. She was named one of the BBC’s 100 Most Inspirational and Influential Women in the World for 2020 and graced the cover of Time magazine in October 2021.
UNDERSTAND THE SERIES
Planeta em Transe is a series of reports and interviews with new actors and experts on climate change in Brazil and around the world. This special coverage also follows the responses to the climate crisis in the 2022 elections and at COP27 (UN conference in November in Egypt). The project is funded by the Open Society Foundations.
