Vanessa Nakate began her activism in 2019 with little more than a handmade sign in Kampala. She went on to found the Rise Up Movement to amplify African climate voices – voices from the continent that contributes only a small share of global emissions yet faces some of the harshest impacts.
When she was cropped out of a press photo of young activists at Davos in 2020 – the only Black activist in the frame – she turned a moment of erasure into a global lesson about who gets seen in the climate story. Her book A Bigger Picture brings African activists' stories together, and her argument is central to this movement: climate justice is impossible without ending poverty and achieving gender equality. Education, she says, is a lifeline.
Achievements
- Founded the Rise Up Movement to amplify African climate voices
- Published A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis (2021)
- Drew global attention to the Congo Basin rainforest and to climate impacts across Africa
- Turned the Davos photo-cropping incident into a worldwide conversation about representation
In Planet vs. Patriarchy: Girls are leading the sustainable revolution.