Vanessa Nakate

Vanessa Nakate is a Ugandan climate justice activist. She grew up in Kampala and started her activism in December 2018 after becoming concerned about the unusually high temperatures in her country. Inspired by Greta Thunberg to start her own climate movement in Uganda, Vanessa began a solitary strike against inaction on the climate crisis in January 2019. Vanessa founded the Youth for Future Africa and the likewise Africa-based Rise Up Movement.

In January 2020, the Associated Press (AP) news agency cropped Vanessa out of a photo she appeared in featuring Greta Thunberg and other white European climate activists after they attended the World Economic Forum in Davos. This caused a controversy which drew attention to the issue of Black and ethnic minority climate activists being ignored on the world stage.

A Bigger Picture is Vanessa's first book.