Venessa Nakate; What You Didn't Know About The Ugandan Climate Change Activist

Vanessa Nakate: What You Didn’t Know About The Ugandan Climate Change Activist

Posted by: Eninu William in Celebrity December 31, 2020

Vanessa Nakate is a 24 year-old Ugandan climate change activist born on the 15 November 1996. She is the founder of Rise Up Climate Movement, a climate change activism initiative that aims at amplifying the voices of activists from Africa.

Nakate is a graduate of Business Administration from Makerere University Business School. She grew up in Kampala and started her activism in December 2018 after becoming concerned about the unusually high temperatures in her country.

Her climate change activism was inspired by Swedish teenage climate change champion Greta Thunberg. Vanessa also started her own climate movement in Uganda in a solitary strike against inaction on the climate crisis in January 2019. For several months she was the lone protester outside of the gates of the Parliament of Uganda. Eventually, other youth began to respond to her calls on social media. Eventually she helped draw attention to the plight of the Congolese rainforests. Nakate founded the Youth for Future Africa and the likewise Africa-based Rise Up Movement.

Eco-friendly projects and International speeches

Vanessa Nakate came up with the Green Schools Project, a renewable energy initiative. Her aim is to transition schools in Uganda to solar energy and install eco-friendly stoves in these schools. As of now, the project has carried out installations in six schools. These schools include; Gayaza Church of Uganda Primary School, Bbina Islamic Primary School, Kyanja Primary School among others.

In January 2020, Nakate joined a group of 20 other youth climate activists from around the world to publish a letter to participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos. They called on companies, banks and governments to immediately stop subsidizing fossil fuels.

She was one of five international delegates invited by Arctic Basecamp to camp with them in Davos during the World Economic Forum; the delegates later joined a climate march on the last day of the Forum.

In October 2020, Nakate also gave a speech at the Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture. She urged world leaders to “wake up” and recognize climate change as a crisis. Furthermore, she tied it to poverty, hunger, disease, conflict and violence against women and girls.

“Climate change is a nightmare that affects every sector of our lives,” she stated. “How can we eradicate poverty without looking at this crisis? How can we achieve zero hunger if climate change is leaving millions of people with nothing to eat? We are going to see disaster after disaster, challenge after challenge, suffering after suffering if nothing is done about this.”

She also called for leaders to “leave their comfort zones and see the danger we are in and do something about it. This is a matter of life and death.”

Vanessa was also one of a handful of youth activists to speak at the COP25 gathering in Spain in December 2019.

Political stand and controversy

Politically, Vanessa Nakate is on the council of the Progressive International, an international organization that promotes progressive European left-wing politics. This organization is mostly dominated by activists to which Nakate is one.

In a controversial move early in January 2020, the Associated Press news agency cropped out Nakate from a photo. She had apparently appeared in this photo featuring Greta Thunberg and activists Luisa Neubauer, Isabelle Axelsson, and Loukina Tille after they all attended the World Economic Forum. Nakate accused the media of a racist attitude. However, the Associated Press later changed the photo and indicated there was no ill intention. They never apologized to date. However, on the 27 January 2020, the Associated Press executive editor Sally Buzbee tweeted an apology using her personal account saying that she was sorry on behalf of the AP.

Interview with Angelina Jolie and letter to Joe Biden

Vanessa was interviewed on Time Magazine’s TIME100 Talks by American actress Angelina Jolie about Activism and the Power of African Voices.

Nakate also wrote a letter to The US President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. In her letter, she asked them if they were serious about their commitment to fixing the climate crisis.

She has through her climate change activism program encouraged youth to join the climate change movement initiatives across Africa.

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