‘Very disturbing’: crackdown on oil pipeline protests in Uganda concerns UN rights expert

“In mid-September, four dozen university students marched through Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, to deliver a petition to parliament calling on the government to end fossil fuel investments and scrap the 900-mile east Africacrude oil pipeline (Eacop) ... Police officers refused to let them enter parliament. Most were chased away, but four male students were corralled under a table near the main entrance, where they say police kicked and punched them, and beat them with wood.

“After the beatings, the students were handcuffed and taken to a police station, where they say officers accused them of having been paid to protest against the pipeline. The four students spent the weekend in one of the city’s most notorious and overcrowded prisons, before being charged with public nuisance and released on bail.

“‘Young people are the majority in our country and we are the most vulnerable to the climate crisis. But anyone rising up against Eacop is facing the brutal wrath of the regime,’ said Magambo, who suffered a dislocated ankle and damage to his left eardrum. ‘It is a laughable case, but they want to keep us busy in court so that we can’t organize and protest. But we have to join the global community’s fight against fossil fuels,’ he said.

“Last month’s arrests were the latest in a wave of criminal charges and other judicial harassment against activists and organizations, raising concerns about the environmental and social impacts of the east African pipeline – which is one of the largest fossil fuel projects under construction in the world.”

Tomorrow, eleven Ugandan students will appear before a Kampala court for their activism against the planned East Africa crude oil pipeline (EACOP), one of the largest fossil fuel infrastructure projects currently under development globally. This is the latest in a series of harassment, threats, and arbitrary arrests against EACOP protestors.

These trials are part of a deeply concerning escalation of threats against human rights defenders in Uganda, particularly those raising concerns around oil development.

Police arrested the students last year, and according to media reports, beat them before remanding them to a maximum security prison. They are charged with the colonial era “common nuisance” offense, which Ugandan authorities have used to suppress legitimate protests.

Activists in Uganda oppose EACOP because of the risks it poses to the environment, local communities, and its potential contribution to climate change. And its construction coincides with a growing consensus amongst experts, including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that there cannot be any new fossil fuel projects if the world is to limit the worst impacts of climate change. [Human Rights Watch]

By Olivia Rosane

Common Dreams

Sept. 4, 2023

ActionAid found that since the Paris agreement, banks have funded the largest Big Ag companies doing business in the Global South to the tune of $370 billion and the fossil fuel sector to the tune of $3.2 trillion.

Since the international community promised to limit global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, the world's major banks have funneled 20 times more money to climate-polluting industries in the Global South than Global North governments have given those same countries to address the climate emergency.

That's just one of the findings of How the Finance Flows: The Banks Fueling the Climate Crisis, an ActionAid report released Monday.

"This report names the biggest offenders in the banking world and calls on them to see that they are destroying the planet, while harming the present and future for their children," Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate wrote in the foreword. "It's time to hold financial institutions to account, and demand that they end their funding of destructive activity."

The report focuses on the financing of two major climate-heating industries in the 134 nations of the Global South: fossil fuels and industrial agriculture.

"People generally know that fossil fuels are the number one cause of greenhouse gas emissions. But what is less understood is that industrial agriculture is actually the second biggest cause of climate emissions," Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at ActionAid International, said during a press briefing ahead of the report's release.

This is because of the sector's link to deforestation, as well as the emissions required to produce industrial fertilizers, she added.

In total, since the 2015 Paris agreement, banks have funded the largest Big Ag companies doing business in the Global South to the tune of $370 billion and the oil, gas, and coal sectors to the tune of $3.2 trillion.

"Global banks often make public declarations that they are addressing climate change, but the scale of their continued support of fossil fuels and industrial agriculture is simply staggering."

The top three banks that invested the most in these sectors were the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China at $154.3 billion, China CITIC Bank at $134.7 billion, and the Bank of China at $125.9 billion. Citigroup came in fourth at $104.5 billion, followed by HSBC at $80.8 billion.

While China features prominently in the report as the world's largest economy, Anderson noted that much of what it produces ends up purchased by consumers in the Global North.

The top three banks in the Americas funding big agriculture and fossil fuels were Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America. While Citigroup was the leading regional funder of fossil fuels, JP Morgan Chase gave the most to industrial agriculture.

In Europe, the top funders after HSBC were BNP Paribas, Société Générale, and Barclays, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial rounded out the top Asian funders.

Where is all that money going? When it comes to agriculture, the leading recipient was Bayer, which bought out Monsanto in 2018. Banks have given it $20.6 billion to do business in the Global South since 2016.

Much of the fossil fuel money went to China's State Power Investment Corporation and other Chinese companies; commodities trader Trafigura; and the usual fossil fuel suspects like ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Saudi Aramco, and Petrobras.

"This is absurd," Anderson said of the findings. "Global banks often make public declarations that they are addressing climate change, but the scale of their continued support of fossil fuels and industrial agriculture is simply staggering."

ActionAid called the report the "flagship" document of its Fund Our Future campaign to redirect global money from climate crisis causes to climate solutions. The report calls on banks to make good on their climate promises and stop funding fossil fuels and deforestation, as well as to put additional safeguards in place to protect the rights of local communities, raise the ambition of their goals to reach "real zero" emissions, and improve transparency and other measures to make sure the projects they fund are behaving ethically.

"This can be stopped," Farah Kabir, the country director of ActionAid Bangladesh, said during the press briefing. "The banks cannot continue to fund fossil fuel industries and industrial agriculture."

In addition, the report offers recommendations to Global North governments to ensure a just transition to a sustainable future for everyone. These included setting stricter regulations for the banking, fossil fuel, and agricultural industries as well as ending public subsidies for these sectors and channeling the money to positive solutions like renewable energy and agroecology.

However, the form that funds take when sent to the Global South makes a big difference, said ActionAid USA executive director Niranjali Amerasinghe. Instead of coming in the form of private loans, it needs to be in the form of public money.

"Providing more loans to countries that are already in significant debt distress is not going to support their transition to a climate-compatible future," she said.

One reason that loans are counterproductive is that nations that accept them are forced to provide a return on investment, and currently the main industries that offer this are in fact fossil fuels and industrial agriculture.

In addition to public funds, debt forgiveness or restructuring and new taxes could also help these countries with their green transition. If companies like Exxon or Bayer doing business in the Global South "were taxed in an equitable way, that would allow those governments to raise public revenue that can then be used to support climate action," Amerasinghe said.

In particular, the report emphasizes agroecology as a climate solution that should be funded in Global South countries.

"Climate change is real in Zambia."

Mary Sakala, a frontline smallholder farmer from Zambia, spoke at the press briefing about how the climate crisis and current agricultural policy put a strain on her community.

"Climate change is real in Zambia," she said, adding that it had brought flooding, droughts, pests, and diseases that meant that "families currently, as I'm speaking right now, sleep on an empty stomach."

Sakala saw hope in agroecology, which would help with food security and resilience, and make farmers less dependent on the government and large companies.

"We need policies to allow [us] to conserve our environment in a cultural way, to help us eat our food," Sakala said. "We want… every seed to be utilized and saved and shared in solidarity."

And she said that the companies and governments of the Global North have a duty to help them get there.

"Those people who are continuing to pollute and let the climate change increase, those people need to pay us, because we are suffering from the things that others are doing," she said.

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When headlines scream of war, economic collapse, and rising authoritarianism, stories about women and how they drive change are often silenced. Yet women are on the front lines of every crisis and conflict. In 2022, they have pushed against entrenched interests to chip away at social norms and rules that often keep them from reaching their full potential. They have won office, changed laws, enlisted allies, and made real progress in the struggle for equality.

Since 2018, The Fuller Project has partnered with Foreign Policy to examine critical issues pertaining to women’s rights around the world. This reporting features in our shared “The Full Story” column and beyond. Here is a collection of the most profound ways women have made an impact this year, as chronicled by The Fuller Project and FP.

As we look to 2023, there is reason for hope.

1. Iran’s protest movement

Since the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s so-called morality police—which enforced strict religious rules, including an Islamic dress code—Iranian women and their allies have poured into the streets of Tehran as well as localities large and small to protest their government’s decadeslong oppression of women. Protesters are risking arrest and death: At least 481 demonstrators have so far been killed by Iranian authorities, according to reports from the Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran.

Iranian women’s bid to reclaim their rights has earned widespread international support and prompted solidarity protests in cities from Seoul to Toronto. Many Iran fans at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar even held signs emblazoned with the movement’s slogan: “Women, Life, Freedom.” Iran’s players faced swift reprisals from their government when, in support of the protesters, they refused to sing the national anthem at their opening match against England.

This month, Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Javad Montazeri, announced that the government had abolished the morality police in an apparent concession to protesters. The announcement did little to quell the unrest. As Sina Toossi argued in Foreign Policy, “it would be a mistake to assume the government’s move represents anything other than an incremental shift.”

2. Climate change advocacy

Women are disproportionately affected by climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that women account for 80 percent of those displaced by climate change. Yet because women often work in the informal economy, the toll that environmental catastrophe takes on their livelihoods may be undocumented or unrecognized. The Fuller Project’s Disha Shetty reported from Pune, India, in July and found that an unbearably hot summer in South Asia led to a precipitous drop in productivity and income for women who work in or near their homes.

It should come as no surprise, then, that women are at the forefront of the global climate movement. From the Fridays for Future movement led by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg—which counts 14 million members in 7,500 cities—to the Green Generation Initiative led by Kenyan activist Elizabeth Wathuti—which has planted more than 30,000 trees in that country—to the Rise Up Movement led by Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate—which works to save the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s rainforest—women have demanded and received a seat at the negotiating table. Participating countries at the U.N. climate change conference in November, known as COP27, agreed to create a “loss and damage” fund to support developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. An idea previously considered fringe, these activists helped bring loss and damage into the mainstream.

3. Latin America’s green wave

This year, a grassroots movement of women demanding reproductive autonomy continued its march across Latin America. The so-called green wave began in Rosario, Argentina, in 2003 with a gathering of 10,000 women in green bandanas who demanded the decriminalization of abortion and right to contraception in their country. It soon spread across the nation and culminated in a massive protest outside Argentina’s National Congress in 2019. In 2020, Argentina legalized abortion until 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Argentina’s green wave sparked protests in Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, and Colombia. In Mexico, the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that criminal prosecution for abortion is unconstitutional. This year, Colombia decriminalized abortion up to 24 weeks, Ecuador legalized abortion in rape cases, and Mexico’s Quintana Roo became the last state in the country to decriminalize abortion following the 2021 court ruling.

All these steps toward reproductive rights in Latin America have appeared starker when compared to the trajectory of the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the landmark precedent Roe v. Wade case, which had guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion. Ten U.S. states have already enacted total bans on the procedure. Foreign Policy mapped how the U.S. downward spiral on abortion rights goes against the global current of liberalization, and The Fuller Project’s Erica Hensley chronicled how American women are fighting back.

FP’s Catherine Osborn argued that the green wave has been more successful than U.S. abortion rights activism because it is fundamentally focused on the intersection between issues. “Claims that legalizing abortion would not only promote privacy and individual choice (Roe’s linchpin) but also improve access to health care and decrease social inequalities have been key in victorious lawsuits in Latin America,” she wrote.

4. Ukraine’s women farmers

Even as Russian soldiers occupied her apricot orchard—and even as the bombs fell close enough that she could see the smoke plumes from her wheat fields—Nadiia Ivanova kept farming.

“I have 45 fields, large and small, and I found a Russian missile in each one of them,” Ivanova told Amie Ferris-Rotman, who was reporting for The Fuller Project near Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, a Ukrainian-controlled territory near the Black Sea.

She is one of some 10,000 women who run farming enterprises in Ukraine and are fighting to keep up production. Ukraine is often referred to as the breadbasket of Europe and is a large supplier of wheat to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated a global food shortage and a hunger crisis in the Middle East and Africa that disproportionately impacts women and girls. It grew so severe that the U.N. intervened over the summer to broker a deal with Turkey to ship grain safely out of Ukraine via the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s women farmers have persisted, however—housing and feeding Ukrainian soldiers as well as fighting to ensure their crops get to market. The women see food as their opportunity to do their part in the war effort.

“These are our weapons,” said farmworker Valentyna Fedorenko, holding up a bucket of fresh green cucumbers. “By feeding the people, we are equipping them to fight.

5. Afghan women resisting the Taliban

In the year since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, two decades of gains in women’s employment and education have all but disappeared. Fuller Project reporters have collaborated with Rukhshana Media, a woman-led Afghan newsroom, to document the new realities for women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan; in “The Full Story,” we have highlighted the plight of queer Afghans. The picture is grim.

The Taliban have ordered women to remain in their homes, barred women from most jobs, and reimposed mandatory face coverings for women in public. Women also may not travel without a male guardian. The new restrictions have limited women’s access to health care, education, and work. The U.N. said the lost income from barring women from the workforce could cost Afghanistan as much as 5 percent of its GDP, plunging the country into deeper poverty and exacerbating food insecurity.

Despite these setbacks, some Afghan women are rising up in rare protests—at great personal risk, reported FP’s Lynne O’Donnell. “Many activists want the world, and especially the United States, where successive administrations greased the path to the Taliban’s return to power, to do more to hold the regime to account,” she wrote.

These are stories of women fighting for rights, for themselves, and for others. Thousands more remain to be told.

‘You can speak and die still, but it is better to speak before you die.’ — Climate activist Nyombi Morris is speaking out against Ugandan government corruption and how it's failing to protect its people from climate change

#Earth #Environment #ClimateCrisis #NowThis

WaPo - Uganda reacts angrily to EU resolution slamming oil pipeline

Uganda’s leader warned Friday that his government could “find someone else to work with” as French partner TotalEnergies faced mounting pressure to pull out of a partnership to construct a pipeline opposed by climate activists.

The comments by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni followed a resolution by the European Union’s Parliament urging the international community “to exert maximum pressure on Ugandan and Tanzanian authorities, as well as the project promoters and stakeholders,” to stop oil activities around Lake Albert.

That resolution cited human rights concerns centered around fair compensation for affected communities as well as environmental fears. More than 120,000 people will lose land to make way for the oil project, according to an evaluation by the environmental group Friends of the Earth.

The 897-mile (1,443-kilometer) East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, planned by TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, is increasingly in trouble as activists, charging that it violates the spirit of the Paris climate accord, try to starve it of funds by petitioning banks and insurers.

But in Uganda, an East African country whose authorities see the pipeline as key to economic development, opposition to the project has sparked indignation. Ugandan authorities say oil wealth can lift millions out of poverty and that stopping the pipeline now would be detrimental to the country’s interests.

The national assembly issued a statement Thursday asserting Uganda’s sovereignty and condemning the EU parliament’s resolution.

Museveni said TotalEnergies had assured him that the pipeline — which would link oil fields in western Uganda to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania — would proceed but warned on Twitter that “if they choose to listen to the EU Parliament, we shall find someone else to work with.”

“Either way, we shall have our oil coming out by 2025 as planned. So the people of Uganda should not worry,” he said.

Uganda is estimated to have recoverable oil reserves of at least 1.4 billion barrels. The China National Offshore Oil Corporation and TotalEnergies said in February that the total investment would be more than $10 billion.

16 Sep 22

Nyombi Morris

@mnyomb1

This young Ugandan activist is not easily deterred when it comes to climate justice campaigning. In March 2021, Morris was physically threatened, and had his placard and cell phone confiscated when he was protesting for climate action on the street. The year before, his Twitter account was suspended for nearly two months following his television appearance opposing industrial logging in his country’s Bugoma Forest. Morris is fiercely passionate about protecting the environment, especially after discovering Uganda is highly vulnerable to extreme climate events and how the floods that displaced his family is linked to climate change. Aside from planting trees and tackling plastic waste, the climate activist is also making sure everyone has the freedom of speech. #climatechangeisreal #nomoreexcuses

UK: Just Stop Oil activists spray paint over energy firm's London office

Activists from the climate group Just Stop Oil sprayed black and orange paint on windows and floors at the London offices of energy and petroleum conglomerate TotalEnergies on Tuesday morning, June 27. “Total is the majority shareholder in the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline — a carbon bomb. This action is in solidarity with @StopEACOPug a group of Ugandan student climate activists fighting to…

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Kenya safe havens at risk with draconian anti-gay bill

In Kenya, the latest Kill the Gays copycat bill is moving through Parliament and threatens thousands of LGBTQ+ refugees fleeing persecution in neighboring Uganda. The proposed law, the latest in a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation introduced across Africa, would expel refugees and asylum seekers who identify as gay, in addition to meting out punishment for an exhaustive list of other “immoral” or abetting offenses. --- Related Stories Ugandans flee as Kill the Gays gains momentum across Africa Arizona-based Family Watch International is a key player stoking anti-LGBTQ+ hate across the continent. --- Provisions in the bill seek the “expulsion of refugees and asylum seekers who breach the law” and would mandate “psychotherapy and rehabilitation of offenders,” raising the prospect of reeducation camps and forced conversion therapy. The bill mandates life in prison for anyone engaging in homosexual sex. Kenya has been the primary destination of LGBTQ+ individuals fleeing Uganda in the wake of that East African nation’s Kill the Gays bill 2.0, which President Yoweri Museveni recently sent back to Parliament for further consideration of additional penalties.   Museveni congratulated lawmakers who stood up to “international pressure and shielded Uganda’s moral fabric during the passing of the bill” and signaled his intention to sign the law. While Ugandans fleeing persecution are holed up in refugee camps and safe houses throughout Kenya, hostility toward LGBTQ+ people has been growing in the former British colony, as well. In February, the Kenyan Supreme Court ruled that the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission could register as a non-governmental organization there, sparking outrage among conservative lawmakers and President William Ruto, who ordered his government’s attorney general to challenge the court’s decision as a violation of Kenyan and moral law. Then earlier this month, Member of Parliament Peter Kaluma introduced his copycat Family Protection Bill, modeled on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act. The lawmaker’s proposed legislation followed a summit of anti-LGBTQ+ activist lawmakers in Uganda in March, organized by Family Watch International, an Arizona-based organization committed to spreading anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion ideology around the world. The group was instrumental in crafting the original Kill the Gays bill in Uganda in 2009. “Same-sex sexual acts and unions are sterile by nature,” Kaluma said, introducing the legislation. “If tolerated or supported and propagated, would lead to the extinction of the human race.”  Paradoxically, Kenya is the only East African nation to accept LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers without questioning their sexual orientation.   The country hosts more than half a million displaced people from nearby countries in refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma. Kakuma is one of the largest in the world. Multiple reports from the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration and the U.N. Refugee Agency in Kenya document human rights violations against LGBTQ+ people at both refugee camps. Earlier this year, more than 300 LGBTQ+ refugees at Kakuma launched a signature drive protesting discrimination, torture, and mistreatment. “As refugees who have sought safety and refuge from conflict and persecution, we should not have to endure further suffering and discrimination within the confines of the camp,” the petition reads. “Yet, this is the reality for many of us.” Police brutality and mistreatment have led to death, disability, and “a climate of fear and insecurity within the camp, where we are unable to live freely and openly as members of the LGBTIQ+ community,” the signatories wrote. “We are tired of living in fear, and we demand an end to these injustices.” http://dlvr.it/SnB9dr

Uganda is a blessed nation, for brain was born and BRIAN WABWIRE is the special poetry antidote. Meet our featured poet Wabwire

BRIAN WABWIRE photo/courtesy Brian Wabwire, stage name, Poet Dr Brian Mars is Ugandan poet. The 23-year-old is graduand of Makerere University Kampala, where he pursued a course of Bachelor’s degree of Arts with Education. He is a teacher, poet, writer, strawberry farmer and goat rearer, actor, Environmental and climate change activist.  Wabwire’s great interest and journey in writing and poetry…

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Ugandan Authorities Should Drop Charges Against Oil Activists

On Monday, nine student climate activists in Uganda will again appear before a Kampala court charged with “common nuisance” for their activism against a proposed oil pipeline. They were arrested and charged last year while marching to deliver a petition to the European Union’s mission in Kampala supporting a European Parliament resolution. The resolution raised significant concerns, including environmental ones, about the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and urged against its construction. In sharp contrast to the treatment of the climate activists, days earlier, students protesting against the resolution had received police protection.

The unfounded and politically motivated charges against the activists should never have been brought, ought to be dropped, and will hopefully be dismissed on Monday. They are part of an ominous and escalating trend of threats against human rights defenders in Uganda, who dare to voice concerns about the country's oil sector.

"Why Are We Here": #Ugandan #Climate #Activists Sidelined at #COP27 Summit

"Why Are We Here": Climate Activists Sidelined At COP27 Summit

“Why Are We Here”: Climate Activists Sidelined At COP27 Summit

In 2008, when Morris was 10, devastating flash floods hit Uganda’s eastern Butaleja district. Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt: Ugandan youth activist Nyombi Morris arrived in Egypt for the UN’s COP27 climate summit with high hopes of being part of the campaign for environmental justice. But it didn’t take long for Egypt’s stiff security measures to shatter his dreams, as rights groups warn the North…

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"Why Are We Here": Climate Activists Sidelined At COP27 Summit

“Why Are We Here”: Climate Activists Sidelined At COP27 Summit

In 2008, when Morris was 10, devastating flash floods hit Uganda’s eastern Butaleja district. Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt: Ugandan youth activist Nyombi Morris arrived in Egypt for the UN’s COP27 climate summit with high hopes of being part of the campaign for environmental justice. But it didn’t take long for Egypt’s stiff security measures to shatter his dreams, as rights groups warn the North…

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Post 7

Watch the Van Gogh Soup incident videos and respond to the question posed on TikTok: Is She Right? What is your impression of this form of activism? is it effective? Did the action have the intended impact? (one sentence for each)

I remember seeing this when it first happened. I’m not a fan of this form of activism because it causes more anger than interest in the cause. While it does go viral, more people are focused on the damage they cause than the actual message they try to put out. If the impact was to create anger towards their movement, then yes, but I doubt that was the intended reaction. I’m sure they wanted their cause to reach a global audience, but instead caused outrage towards the damaging (or attempted damage) of beloved artworks. 

Required reading: A Bigger Picture by Vanessa Nakate and No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg 

Write a 2-3 paragraph summary of each book

A Bigger Picture by Vanessa Nakate

Vanessa Nakate’s A Bigger Picture tells the story of a young Ugandan woman who sees firsthand the impact climate change has on her community. Nakate became a pioneer in the climate change movement once in University. As young activists, like Greta Thunberg, grew in prominence, she was invited to events in places such as New York and Davos. 

While at a climate event in Davos she was photographed along with other prominent young climate activists. Nakate was famously cropped out of the image featuring 4 other white activists. Whether intentional or not, it shows that often people of color are overlooked or excluded from conversations, or movements, that directly affect them. Nakate uses her story to start a dialogue around overlooked communities who face devastation from climate change that few pay attention to. 

No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg

In Greta Thunberg’s book No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, we have a collection of Greta’s speeches that she has given pertaining to the global climate crisis. Who can feel her passion for the movement, as well as her knowledge of climate change. She actively calls out global world leaders and companies for their lack of care and willingness to change. Our climate and our economy are intertwined. Those most responsible refuse to make a change because they care more about the money than actively saving our planet. 

In many of her speeches she even refers to the vitriol she has dealt with due to her diagnosis. Greta mentions how the climate crisis is a black and white issue, that there is no room for a gray area. When the options are working to fix this or allowing the planet to die, she makes a very good point. She points out that it doesn’t matter that the message is coming from a child, she is only repeating what the scientists have been speaking on for years. 

Luisa Neubauer (the 'German Greta'): Advice for Would-be Climate Activists

Who is Luisa Nebauer? Is her message still relevant? Watch the TedTalk and discuss: Why I became a climate activist -- and you should, too | Luisa Neubauer | TEDxYouth@München

Luisa-Marie Neubauer is a 26 year old climate activist from Hamburg, Germany. Three years ago, Neubauer spoker at TEDxYouth@München on why she decided to become a climate activist. Having been annoyed that her Geography teacher spent a mere 90 minutes focusing on the greenhouse effect, she decided to study geography in university. Once she was able to dive deeper into the science, she saw just how much damage had been done to the planet. Realizing little would be done after the UN climate summit, she decided to organize along with others. 

I feel her message is more than relevant today. Though some companies and countries have agreed to do better, we are still on a dangerous trajectory. The climate crisis is still very real and with constant hurricanes, floods, and fires, the future is looking bleaker than ever. Continuing the fight for change is as much as most of us can do right now. We need to put pressure on the big companies and countries who are affecting the climate the most. If they do not change, anything we as individuals do will seem insignificant.