‘People are saying the climate crisis is real, only because it has knocked on the door of the global north,’ says Vanessa Nakate, a Ugandan climate activist.
Africa accounts for 15% of the world’s population but 4% of greenhouse emissions – compared with 23% by China and 19% by the US. More than 18m people in the Horn of Africa risk starvation after years of drought, but the countries suffering the worst effects of climate change did not cause this global crisis.
Here Nakate speaks about this climate injustice, ahead of next month’s Cop27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, when countries from across the global south will call for billions of dollars of financing for adaptation, the transition to green energy, and climate reparations.
