At just 25 years old, Vanessa Nakate is already one of the most recognisable – not to mention influential – climate activists in the world.
Born in Uganda, Vanessa founded the Rise-Up movement, which amplifies the voices of African voices in the fight against climate change. Indeed, she famously noted that “Africa produces a very small fraction of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, climate change threatens to expose up to 118 million of the poorest Africans to droughts, floods and extreme heat by 2030.”
Her tireless campaigning efforts were recognised last night (20 September) at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers 2022 ceremony, where Vanessa won the Campaign Award.
Goalkeepers is a multi-year campaign which brings together a diverse community of global leaders and changemakers who are advancing progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Vanessa Nakate was recognised for processing the following goals: quality education, gender equality, reduced inequalities, and climate action.
Here, she speaks to GLAMOUR about her journey into climate activism and what other young women can do to get involved:
GLAMOUR: It's an honour to speak to you today, Vanessa. Can you tell us a little bit about how you became a climate activist?
Vanessa: I started getting involved in activism in 2018 – that's when I started researching the challenges of people in my country, Uganda. I found out that climate change was one of those challenges, and it was mostly affecting people through landslides, floods, and droughts. That really pushed me to do something about it.
I was also inspired by Greta [Thunberg] from Sweden and started striking for the climate in the first week of January 2019. I grew up in Kampala, Uganda, and since 2019 I've been organising with different activists in Uganda through school reach-outs where we carry out climate education, reach out to communities, and participate in clean-ups – especially in markets. I've also been doing a project that I started in 2019, which involves the installation of solar panels and eco-friendly stoves in Uganda.
Inspiring stuff.
You spent some time at the beginning of your climate activism as a lone protestor outside the Ugandan parliament. How did you find those early days of activism?
For my first climate strike, I was joined by one of my siblings and cousins, and we striked in many different places. It was actually a Sunday when I started the strike because when I found out about the climate strikes [in which schoolchildren across the world decided to protest governmental lack of action on climate change instead of going to school], it was a Saturday, and I thought I needed to start as soon as possible. From then on, I started striking every Friday – and some Mondays too.
It was a new experience for me, and I was nervous about it in the beginning. It wasn't always very easy, standing in front of people, holding a placard, and seeing people wonder what I was doing. People would ask why I wasn't at school or looking for a job – why I was standing on the street. It wasn't a subject that many people related to at that point.
There was only one strike that I did in front of the Ugandan parliament, joined by my friend Elton. We never got to do another strike in front of the parliament again, but we just kept organising in front of malls and petrol stations. It was very hard for me, in the beginning, to stand in the streets.
Has it got any easier?
Once you get on the street, maybe for the first minute, I can still feel nervous, but it's much easier now than it was in 2019.
Do more people recognise you now? And do you get many requests for selfies?!
More people recognise me, but that usually happens at climate conferences, for example, COP26. I do get many people asking for pictures. Growing up and being in school, it's always been quite hard for me to interact with people or to have conversations, but I'm trying to adjust to that because I always meet different people, we talk about the work we're doing, take pictures, and share each other's work.
The climate crisis impacts everyone, but women and girls are bearing the brunt of it.
What are the biggest challenges you face as a climate activist?
In the beginning, one of the biggest challenges was when people didn't relate to what I was talking about. They tended to be very negative and abusive. When I was striking, I received comments from people – especially men – who said, “If I'm looking for a man, then I should just say it and get married, rather than standing on the streets and pretending to hold a placard.” Some would call it prostitution disguised as climate activism because of the standing on the street.
Sometimes people would say that other activists and I were exaggerating the extent of the climate crisis, that it wasn't happening at all. For many other activists and me, the main challenge is the abusive people and the people who are constantly denying that the climate crisis is happening right now.
If you're a young woman on the frontline of climate activism, it's harder to go through certain spaces and feel that your voice is being listened to.
Do you think that being a Black African woman plays a role in that? Do you think there's a difference in how you would be treated if you were a white woman from the UK?
I've had my own experiences as a Black activist within the climate movement. Many people know about the photo incident [in which Vanessa was cropped from a photo taken with white climate activists], and there have been other incidents like this.
I think this is a challenge not only for me but also for many other Black activists – to be in a situation whereby you could be erased from a conversation or you could be ignored because of where you come from. That's very problematic because – in the end – we can't have climate justice if voices are being excluded. Every activist from every community has a story to tell, and every story has a solution to give, and every solution has a life to change. This will only be possible if platforms amplify our voices.
Can you tell us more about your book, A Bigger Picture? What inspired you to write it?
In this book, I talk about my experiences as an activist and share the stories of different activists across Africa and the world. It shows the bigger picture of the climate crisis beyond the statistics. It shows what communities are going through right now and what governments need to do to address the crisis.
I also talk about how women and girls are affected by the climate crisis and how solutions – such as education and empowerment – can help us achieve climate justice.
‘Sustainable’ labels can actually mean anything but…
What would your advice be for other young women who want to get involved in climate activism but don't know where to start?
The very first step is asking yourself, “What can I do?” No voice is too small to make a difference; no action is too small to transform the world. We start with our communities, transforming them through grassroots projects and activism. We can use our platforms, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, to highlight what is happening – using our space to talk about the climate crisis because we need more people to create awareness.
It's really about finding what you can do and how you can add your voice, or your action to the climate movement. If you're a teacher, you can use your platform to educate your students about what they can do to protect the environment; if you're a lawyer, you can support different activists across different court cases; if you're a journalist, you can amplify the stories of those on the frontlines.
To every young woman out there, it's all about finding what you can do with what you already have to contribute to the climate movement – remember that even when it seems like that action is too small, the action is actually making a difference.
The paperback of A Bigger Picture is coming out on 6th October.
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For more from Glamour UK's Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.
