A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis

By Vanessa Nakate

‘Vanessa Nakate continues to teach a most critical lesson. She reminds us that while we may all be in the same storm, we are not all in the same boat.’ - Greta Thunberg

No matter your age, location or skin colour, you can be an effective activist.

Devastating flooding, deforestation, extinction and starvation. These are the issues that not only threaten in the future, they are a reality. After witnessing some of these issues first-hand, Vanessa Nakate saw how the world’s biggest polluters are asleep at the wheel, ignoring the Global South where the effects of climate injustice are most fiercely felt.

Inspired by a shared vision of hope, Vanessa’s commanding political voice demands attention for the biggest issue of our time and, in this rousing manifesto for change, shows how you can join her to protect our planet now and for the future.

Vanessa realized the importance of her place in the climate movement after she, the only Black activist in an image with four white Europeans, was cropped out of a press photograph at Davos in 2020. This example illustrates how those who will see the biggest impacts of the climate crisis are repeatedly omitted from the conversation. As she explains, ‘We are on the front line, but we are not on the front page.’

Without A Bigger Picture, you’re missing the full story on climate change.

‘An indispensable voice for our future.’ - Malala Yousafzai

‘A powerful global voice.’ - Angelina Jolie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781529075700

Vanessa Nakate

VANESSA NAKATE is founder of the Rise Up climate movement and the Vash Green Schools Project, which aims to install solar panels on all of Uganda’s 24,000 schools. She has spearheaded the Save Congo Rainforest campaign. The United Nations named her a Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals in 2020, and Time magazine named her to its Time100 Next list in 2021. Nakate and her work have been featured in the New York Times, the Guardian,Yes!,Vox, Vogue, the Huffington Post, the International Women’s Forum, and the Global Landscapes Forum, and on globalcitizen.org, greenpeace.org, CNN, the BBC, PBS, and United Nations media. She lives in Kampala, Uganda.