Vanessa Nakate

A Ugandan climate activist leading global youth movements for environmental justice

Vanessa Nakate (born 1998) is a Ugandan environmental activist and climate justice advocate who gained international recognition in 2020 for her grassroots efforts addressing climate change impacts in Africa. Despite being excluded from a TIME magazine photo featuring white activists at the 2020 Davos protests, her story went viral when she shared the cropped photo with the caption 'The boy asked me why I was excluded from the picture. I don't have an answer.'

In 2020, she launched the Stop the Destruction of the Earth campaign, organizing climate strikes across 30 African countries. Her work focuses on connecting local communities with global climate policies, particularly through her Green Arusha Initiative which plants trees while educating youth about climate solutions. Nakate's TED Talk 'Why Africa's Climate Activists Are Being Ignored' (2021) has been viewed over 5 million times.

She developed the '365 Days of Climate Action' program, creating educational content in multiple African languages. Her partnership with UNDP in 2022 led to the creation of solar-powered schools in rural Uganda. In 2023, she became the youngest African to advise the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), advocating for loss-and-damage funding mechanisms.