A climate change disaster led this shy 24-year-old from Uganda into activism

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Climate activist Hilda Flavia Nakabuye speaks at the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen in 2019. She and a group of Ugandan activists are calling on high-income countries to commit to bigger and faster emission cuts ahead of COP26, the climate change summit taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, this week.

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Nakabuye, second from right, and other activists hold signs bearing climate change-related messages directed toward the Ugandan government. The protest, which was organized by Nakabuye’s group, Fridays for Future Uganda, took place at Kampala International University in Uganda in March.

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But she still focuses on local environmental issues, leading by example. Her group regularly meets to pick up trash around Lake Victoria and educate people in the area about the dangers of dumping. It creates clogged waterways that can make it difficult for locals to fish. And the polluted water makes it hard for fish to breed. «We talk to the public about the right disposal ways — you have to put waste in the rubbish bin,» she says. «They’re starting to realize [the impact that] dumping has on their lives and their community,» she said in an interview with UNESCO in 2020.

One of Nakabuye’s main messages is that climate change is everyone’s problem – not just for those who are experiencing it. During her speech at the Mayors summit in 2019, she issued a warning for those who remain indifferent to the cause — and a pledge: «your beds might be comfortable now but not for long. You will soon feel the same heat we feel every day. And I also promise you: Rest assured that youth from the other side of the world are fighting for a safe future for you and for us all and are not about to give up.»

Fridays for Future Uganda now has over 50,000 members, and a few representatives are traveling to COP26 to share their priorities. Among their asks: improve climate change education in schools and carve out grants specifically for young people to help their communities prepare for climate change and train them for careers in the renewable energy industry.

«This is a matter of life and death,» Nakabuye says. «And our survival depends on the actions we take right now.»