Vanessa Nakate

Biography

Vanessa Nakate was born in Kampala in 1996 and studied business at Makerere University Business School. In January 2019, worried about the droughts and floods already battering East Africa, she began a lonely climate strike outside the Ugandan parliament, inspired by Greta Thunberg. For weeks she protested almost alone. Within a year she was on the world stage.

The Turning Point

In January 2020 she travelled to the World Economic Forum in Davos and appeared at a press event alongside Greta Thunberg and three European activists. When the Associated Press published the photograph, Nakate, the only Black activist in the group, had been cropped out entirely. Her response was immediate and unforgettable: "You didn't just erase a photo," she said. "You erased a continent." The moment went around the world, forced an apology from one of the largest news agencies on earth, and made her a household name in climate circles overnight.

Historical Context

Nakate rose within the youth climate movement that followed Greta Thunberg's school strikes, at a time when the movement's public face was overwhelmingly white and European, even though Africa contributes the least to global emissions while suffering some of the worst consequences. Her work put the phrase climate justice at the centre of the conversation, the argument that the countries harmed most by a crisis they did least to cause deserve both a voice and repair.

Major Achievements

• Founded the Rise Up Movement to amplify African climate activists, and the Green Schools Project bringing solar power and clean cookstoves to Ugandan schools
• Addressed world leaders at the UN, the World Economic Forum and successive COP summits, helping push loss and damage onto the global agenda
• Appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and named to the BBC's 100 Women and TIME100 Next
• Author of A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis (2021)

Her Impact Today

The attempt to crop her out backfired completely, turning a young Ugandan activist into one of the most recognisable voices in global climate politics. She has used that platform to insist, again and again, that the Global South be seen and heard, and that the people on the front lines of the crisis help decide what happens next.

Sources: Wikipedia (Vanessa Nakate), NBC News, BuzzFeed News, UNICEF.