Vanessa Nakate

Speaker at the St. Gallen Symposium

Vanessa Nakate is the Founder of the Rise up Climate Movement, which seeks to amplify the voices of African Climate Activists. In 2020, Vanessa Nakate travelled with four European climate activists to the World Economic Forum to hold leaders accountable for their lack of climate action. After having been cropped out of a news photo of the five activists, her statement “You didn’t just erase a photo - You erased a continent” spread around the world. In 2021, she was on the cover of TIME magazine, on the TIME 100 Next List, and published her book “A Bigger Picture”. Vanessa Nakate addressed world leaders at both COP25 and COP26 and was appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2022.