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Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate was famously cut out of an AP photo taken with her White colleagues at Davos. In this excerpt from A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis, she explains the importance of visibility and real participation for advocates from the Global South, where the climate crisis is a daily reality.

The need for greater climate justice representation among African activists and my wish to attract more of my peers to the movement pushed me to found Youth for Future. This became the Rise Up Movement, which launched its social media platform in January 2020. Rise Up is organized in Uganda by Evelyn Acham, Davis Reuben Sekamwa, Edwin Namakanga, Isaac Ssentumbwe, Nyombi Morris, Joshua Omonuk, my cousin Isabella, who joined me at the first strike, and my sisters Clare and Joan. It also serves as an umbrella group for climate activists in Uganda and across Africa.

Rise Up recognizes that communication and coordination are essential. 鈥淲e need to work together as Africans, because if we don鈥檛 step up and we continue to see ourselves as 鈥榖ackstage,鈥� then we鈥檙e not going to succeed,鈥� is how Adenike Oladosu puts it. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 wait for money to step into this room for climate justice. Youth need to step up and step in, and demand a secure future.鈥�

Even before my experience of being cropped out of the photo at Davos, I鈥檇 noticed the lack of visibility or presence in the global climate movement of people from Africa. But the photo-cropping made me even more determined to support and spotlight African activism, as well as young people throughout the Global South: mainly, but not solely, women. It was clear to me many more of us needed to make ourselves visible and speak out so leaders would have to listen to us, whether they were in the Global North or South. It seemed to me that too many leaders were in environments where they were sheltered from the effects of their decision-making. Those of us who had no ability to escape the climate crisis, because it was on our doorstep, had to haunt them: to force them to understand that the consequences of their decisions weren鈥檛 abstract or insignificant, but in real time and in real life were harming someone, somewhere.

Everyone saying that I should position myself in the middle is wrong!

Does an African activist have to stand in the middle just because of fear of being cropped out?

It shouldn’t be like this!

鈥� Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash)

The photo-cropping experience also made it crucial that the national and international media move beyond the chosen handful of climate activists they鈥檇 usually featured. I and other African and Global South activists wanted them to recognize and include perspectives, stories, and solutions offered by thousands of other young people who could explain their and their nations鈥� climate reality on any platform, at any time. For these activists the climate crisis wasn鈥檛 a theory; it was part of their daily lives in their communities and countries.

For Evelyn, visibility was essential. As she told me, 鈥淚 see mostly white activists, from Europe and the US. In Africa, you only hear from a few.鈥� The Global North has to widen the frame. As she sees it:

The international community can show support by joining hands with us and amplifying the work that we are doing. We need our work to be shared, talked about, and supported. This can empower people who are already fighting for their environment and give them platforms to speak and opportunities to learn more and get more educated about climate change. Because people listen so much to the international community. It has a lot of power.

Evelyn foresees positive outcomes if there is genuine solidarity in the global climate movement:

The international community can also give us a chance to join their groups, and learn more from them, because I believe they have solutions that we also want to learn. But they need to know us … they need to listen to us, too, and the solutions we have to offer. Such an orientation comes from knowing and appreciating that everyone has something to say, and not to look down on people from Africa or any of the other continents. They need to value the solutions we give, because they could cause change. We are facing the impacts; we can see what鈥檚 happening; we鈥檙e experiencing them.

Providing more visibility and bigger stages for Africans, young or old, is not merely about educating the media on who should be (kept) in a photograph. It鈥檚 also not about bringing a few of us to a conference and allowing us to speak on a panel. Nor is it about only featuring those who are already popular on social media platforms or have a large audience. That is essentially cosmetic diversity. 鈥淢any people are behind the scenes working hard,鈥� as Kaossara Sani says. 鈥淢aybe people think, 鈥楬ey, she is just the only climate activist from Togo,鈥� but we have people. They may not be on social media. But I can say that they are inspiring me.鈥�

Now, I recognize how valuable it is to have role models who can inspire you and keep you positive: I looked up to Greta Thunberg and others, and I still do; and I hope I fulfill that role for some people. I understand that the media picks individuals rather than mass movements to focus their readers鈥� or viewers鈥� attention: I鈥檝e benefited from that. I realize that the media tracks who receives more 鈥渃licks鈥� or 鈥渓ikes,鈥� and that algorithms and editors amplify those preferences in order to sell more advertising. And I鈥檓 also aware that organizers promote specific activists at certain events or meetings because they believe the media will come if those activists are present. I鈥檝e been the beneficiary of those realities too.

We all want to feel welcomed and appreciated by our peers. I can testify how important it鈥檚 been to feel seen in the climate justice movement. But no movement鈥攅specially one in which the survival of the planet is at stake鈥攃an rely on a handful of 鈥渞ock stars鈥� or 鈥渉eroes.鈥� Nor should it. We need people of all ages and races, with the widest possible range of skills, from every socioeconomic background, and from everywhere on Earth to become involved. Just as there isn鈥檛 just one activist, or 鈥渃orrect鈥� way to be an activist, so limiting the climate movement to one age group or one form of protest or one part of the globe is to reduce the scope of the potential and power of our collective energy, skills, and voices鈥攁nd to underestimate the urgent challenges we face.

However, even more than a year after I was cropped out of the photo at Davos, it鈥檚 hard to escape marginalization. In March 2021, the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue invited Brianna Fruean from Samoa and me to speak at their virtual conference. Brianna and I were promised five minutes each to make our remarks. In the weeks before the conference, organizers cut our allotted time to four minutes, and then to three and a half. They also insisted on seeing the text of our speeches and repeatedly instructed us not to 鈥渘ame or shame鈥� leaders who鈥檇 be taking part.

It鈥檚 astonishing that institutions want us to be represented so they can claim the virtues of inclusion and diversity, and then determine what we can say, how we can say it, and for how long we can speak, cropping our time to the bare minimum lest we offend anyone. Who should be offended? The leaders who鈥檝e ignored the crisis or the climate activists who are censored when they speak on behalf of those millions of people whose only offense is to suffer, starve, and die because of the climate emergency: an emergency made worse by the inaction of those leaders鈥� countries?

When I spoke, I went off script. I used my 210 seconds to call the organizers out:

It is the leaders who have failed us so far鈥攏ot the young people. It is the leaders who have ignored the scientists and the science. It is the leaders who time and time again have failed to treat the climate crisis like a crisis. This is not 鈥渘aming and shaming.鈥� This is telling the truth. Why are you so afraid of hearing the truth?

Excerpt from A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis by Vanessa Nakate, published by HarperCollins (2021) appears with permission of the publisher.