Vanessa Nakate is championing climate change

“I wanted to offer help. My father is a Rotarian and Rotarians take part in activities aimed at helping people,” she says. 

Passion for climate change

Throughout her childhood, she picked interest in challenges that people in her community face and climate change stood out. “Poverty, unemployment, maternal health issues are all big challenges but climate change is a somewhat forgotten subject yet it affects livelihoods. For example, flooding and landslides kill people and destroy homes and farms. So, I decided to start to demand for action in order to put an end to the climate crisis…,” she adds. 

In December 2018, Nakate embarked on a journey of environmental activism. Together with her brother, in January 2019, they stood at the gates of the Parliament of Uganda in protest against inaction on the climate crisis in Uganda.

Using voice to demand for change

A graduate of Business Administration from Makerere University, Nakate has chosen to use her voice to speak on behalf of the oceans, forests, animals, the entire eco-system, for the people and their lives. She is standing up for the rural communities and advocating the conservation of areas that are mostly affected by the climate crisis.

“You can use your voice to protect nature. You can choose sustainable ways of living to conserve the environment. All this is activism,” Nakate says.

Impact of climate change

Environmental experts say Africa is the most vulnerable to climate shocks, with more frequent droughts and floods stretching people to their limits as farmers are left counting losses.

Nakate contends that it is important to involve African voices in the climate conversation adding that families and communities are facing devastating impacts of climate change.

“Most African countries heavily depend on agriculture as a form of survival. And agriculture is rain-fed. We are now facing extreme floods and droughts in specific areas of the continent and many people’s crops are destroyed,” she says. 

Nakate says the effects of climate change have left many people with nothing to eat and mothers frustrated because most of the rural communities have women doing all the work to provide food for their families. 

Weekly protests

These are issues which motivated Nakate to establish climate action groups; Youth for Future Africa and the Rise Up Movement. She and other activists are championing the cause and weekly, they undertake environmental protests in the neighbourhoods of Kampala under the Fridays for Future Youth.

According to Nakate, the ‘Rise Up Movement’ was birthed out of ‘Youth for Future Africa.’ The existence of the movement helps amplify the voices of different climate change activists across African continent.

Energy saving stoves

Nakate says under the Rise Up Movement, some of the projects she is spearheading include the installation of large institutional energy saving stoves and solar power in schools.

“We have installed energy saving stoves in two schools. We hope that this project will significantly reduce the amount of firewood that is used by schools and other institutions to prepare meals. For example, in an event that a school uses five trucks of firewood a term, with an energy saving stove and solar power stove, it will end up using only two trucks per term. This will reduce carbondioxide emissions into the atmosphere,” Nakate says.

With the ongoing discussions surrounding the transition to renewable energies, Nakate is using this project to make solar energy accessible at no cost to schools and other institutions.

Whether it is fossil fuel, deforestation or plastics, Nakate says she wants all leaders to appreciate that climate change has far reaching implications on people and the environment within which they live.

Her thoughts on oil

Nakate is against oil companies mining oil in Uganda, arguing that profits from the industry are temporary. “Oil will be depleted after a short while. If you have all that money why don’t you invest it in renewable energies?”

She has taken part in climate change campaigns across the African continent, including spending many days campaigning for the protection of the Congo forests.

In January 2020, she joined 20 other international youth climate activists to publish a letter to participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos, calling on companies, banks and governments to immediately stop subsidising fossil fuels.

Climate change campaigns

She was among a handful of youth activists that spoke at the COP25 gathering in Spain in December 2019. She attended the UN Youth climate summit in New York, USA on September 2019. She has attended different climate summits in Denmark, Nigeria and Spain.

Career highlights

THE BBC named Vanessa Nakate, the Ugandan climate activist on its list of 100 inspiring and influential women around the world for 2020.

Nakate was recognised for her international campaigns that highlight the impacts of climate change in Africa. She focuses on how the climate crisis is intensifying poverty, conflict and gender inequality.

She has taken part in climate change campaigns across the African continent, including spending days campaigning for the protection of the Congo forests.

The BBC 100 Women 2020 highlights people who are championing change and making a difference, especially during these turbulent times.

The list includes Sanna Marin, who leads Finland’s all-female coalition government, Michelle Yeoh, star of the new Avatar and Marvel films, Sarah Gilbert, who heads the Oxford University research into coronavirus vaccine, as well as Jane Fonda, a climate activist and actress.

Asked what the future holds if the crisis is not handled now, Nakate says she has hope, that leaders will one day realise just how important climate change is and prioritise it just like other sectors such as health and education.

“These are the things that keep me fighting. I want a clean and healthy future,” she adds.

Voice out concerns

Racial incident

Nakate is yet to recover from the racial incident early last year, when the Associated Press (AP) news agency cropped her out of a photo with other activists; Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, Isabelle Axelsson and Loukina Tille.

The five international youth climate activists had just addressed a joint press conference at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Nakate and other activists were invited by Arctic Basecamp to share hard truths with the global leaders who had gathered at Davos.

AP cropped Nakate out of the group photo and published an image with only the other four white activists.

Recalling the unfortunate experience, Nakate says: “I was hurt. I asked myself why I wasted my time at the press conference yet my voice would not be heard,” the 23-year-old activist added.

Nakate says this incident introduced her to deep-rooted racism. “I had never experienced it before in my life. And it made me realise that there are people who suffer racism every day of their lives.”

Perhaps this racial incident was a blessing in disguise considering that Nakate has since received a lot of support from the public, a platform she is using to demand for change.

“Despite the fact that the incident was painful, I and the rest of the activists used it to our advantage to create platforms for African activists to tell our climate change stories,” Nakate adds.

Nakate says this incident will not deter her in her environment activism. “Personally I am a climate activist and I have learnt to believe that if you see an injustice, use your voice against it and speak up.”

Asked if she is going to continue with climate activism for the rest of her life, she says: “I have learnt that when I see an injustice, I should speak against it. This is not just expected of me, it is expected from all of us.”

Key

Environmental experts say Africa is the most vulnerable to climate shocks, with more frequent droughts and floods stretching people to their limits as farmers are left counting losses.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), every bit of additional warming adds greater risk for Africa in the form of droughts, increase in hot nights as well as longer and more frequent heat waves.

Nakate contends that it is important to encourage African voices in the climate conversation.