Vanessa Nakate: A Superstar for Climate Justice

VANESSA NAKATE, CLIMATE ACTIVIST: I can first talk about the $100 billion finance, climate finance that has been delayed until 2023. So it’s hard for me to have hope for new finances being promised, and yet what was already promised has not yet been delivered. I feel like what we are getting from the leaders, it’s continuous empty promises. It’s continuous empty words. It’s continuous empty phrases, showing us that we can have hope with their words, but, in the end, these words are not implemented into action. So I don’t really have hope that we will see that money being implemented, if the $100 billion climate finance has still been delayed for countries who are on the front lines of the climate crisis, but are not responsible for this crisis.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Yes, delayed by at least three years now. So, your skepticism is obviously warranted. Talk about your start in activism on the streets there of Kampala in Uganda a few years ago. What is it around you and your environment, what you saw in a daily life perspective in your reality, that made you become this activist?

NAKATE: The climate crisis is a present reality in my country, Uganda. My country heavily depends on agriculture for survival. For many communities, for many families and for the economy itself. But with the rising global temperatures, we are seeing changes in weather patterns. We are experiencing more extreme rainfall, more extreme droughts, and this means that too much rain is a lot of destruction of farms, people’s homes, people’s businesses, hospitals and schools, and the lack of rain, it means hunger, starvation and death for very many communities. So, the climate crisis is a present reality for a country that is not responsible for this crisis. But not just in Uganda, across Africa. The climate crisis is ravaging different parts of the African continent, which is ironic given that Africa is only responsible for 3 percent of global emissions.

GOLODRYGA: You said that everybody, every leader that comes to the conference, that speaks out, that makes pledges needs to address a “ticking clock,” that is climate change and the perils of it on humanity. And without that, that their words are meaningless. Explain more about that.

NAKATE: Climate change is more than weather. Climate change is more than statistics. Climate change is more than data points. Climate change is more than 1.5 degrees. Climate change is about the people. And that is what I want leaders to understand, that climate change is destroying livelihoods of very many people right now.