Ugandan Climate Activist Vanessa Nakate Speaks on the Protest against the all nations COP26 conference in Glasgow Scotland.
Leaders across the world have met in Scotland, Glasgow, for COP26, in the United Nations Climate Change Conference to discuss possible ways to spare the reaming world treasures from the global ongoing emission which has impacted climate change.
This year’s conference aimed at reaching a consensus on actions that will keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels and to secure net-zero emissions by 2050.
The four main purposes of this conference are to; (1) Global net Zero and 1.5C (2) Protect communities and natural habitats, (3) Mobilize finance, (4) Collaboration.
On Friday 5th, November, thousands of youth matched from Kelvingrove Park to Gorge Square in protest against the ongoing climate summit declaring the Glasgow Cop26 a failure.
Several youth conservation activists speaking against the ongoing COP26 in their different capacities said that they have felt some of their involvement has been a box-ticking exercise for the power players who in their view aren’t truly committing to solving the climate crisis.
Among the young speakers at the protest summit at Gorge square was the Ugandan activist, the Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate, 24, who said, Africa was experiencing some of the harshest effects from climate change.
She said historically Africa’s contributed to the world climate emission only 3% but sharing the same effects with the major polluters of the environment.
But while the African continent, while the global south is on the front lines of the climate crisis, they are not on the front pages of world newspapers, The Ugandan activist Nakate also said she envisions a future when “the world is green again.”
Nakate spoke alongside other major speakers headed by Greta Thunberg who declared Cop26 a “Greenwash festival” as she spoke to thousands of climate activists at Glasgow.
Greta said, “the world leaders are struggling to maintain business as usual, there is no longer a climate conference rather this is now a global north greenwash festival, a two-week-long celebrating of business as usual and bla bla bla”.
Many of the demonstrators said they did not trust their leaders to bring about the real change as far as climate change is concerned, but were encouraged to see how many other young people were fighting for climate action.
Nakate emerged as a leading voice of young activists agitating for climate action, and her attention particularly in Africa disposing of the uneven impact of climate its impact on the people of Africa which contributes petite to global warming.
Who is Vanessa Nakate?
Vanessa Nakate is a Ugandan born, born on November 15th, 1996, and grew up in Kampala. She graduated from Makerere University with a degree in Business Administration.
She started her activism carrier in 2018 and after being inspired by a friend Greta Thunberg, Nakate started her own climate movement in Uganda with a solitary strike against inaction on the climate crisis in 2019, for months she engaged in lone protest outside the parliament but with time other youth responded to her call.
She founded the Youth for Future Africa, in 2019 she featured in the handful of youth activists speaking at the COP25 gathering which was in Spain.
In 2019 Nakate was among the 20 climates activist youth from across the world who wrote a letter to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, calling out governments, banks, and companies to immediately stop subsidizing fossil fuel.
In October 2020, Nakate gave a speech at the Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture urging world leaders to “wake up” and recognize climate change as a crisis, tying it to poverty, hunger, disease, conflict, and violence against women and girls.
Nakate is on the council of the Progressive International, an international organization promoting progressive left-wing politics. She has criticized capitalism, linking it to environmental degradation.
Vanessa Nakate received the Hub Law Environmental 2021 Award in recognition of her citizen diplomacy to bring out the voice of a generation to global environmental campaigns and her inspiring activism in Uganda and beyond.
Nakate and other 6 counterparts Young Activists Honored in 2020 by Young Activists Summit during a live discussion on Post-COVID-19 World for bringing together Over 8,600 People from Around 100 Countries.
She featured on the BBC’s 100 women announced in November 2020
