'You can't have climate justice without gender equality'.

Vanessa Nakate, 25, the founder of the Africa-based Rise Up Movement, speaks out on the climate crisis and its intersection with gender and race, especially in how it disproportionately affects women and girls in Africa. She spoke to UN WOMEN on why gender equality is a powerful tool in tackling the climate crisis. Here are the excerpts:

How did you get involved in climate activism?

I remember learning about climate change in school, as I read more, I observed that the impact of climate change was already unfolding in Uganda. For example, the floods in the western part of the country, landslides in the east as well as the droughts. The climate crisis was already affecting so many people in Uganda, and yet there was not much awareness.

I decided I had to do something, inspired by Greta Thunberg's climate strikes, I started striking every Friday with my first strike in January 2019. It has now been three years of activism; in these three years I helped mobilize climate strikes in Uganda.

The message is getting wider, but it has always been the same message. The work we are doing as activists in Uganda is to create awareness to demand for climate justice to highlight the loss and damage happening in Uganda and across Africa, demanding for a fairer and healthier future for us.

This journey in activism led me to write my book 'A Bigger Picture' which touches on how and why I began this activism and tells the story of different activists in Africa and beyond. I believe every activist has a story to tell with a solution, and every solution has a life to change. In the book I speak on the intersections of climate change with other issues, we cannot have climate justice without gender equality, climate change is disproportionately affecting so many women and girls.

We can't have climate justice without poverty eradication, we can't have climate justice without achieving zero hunger. We can't have climate justice without gender equality.

What actions are most needed to advance gender equality in the context of climate action?

Educating girls and women's empowerment, I would say. Project Drawdown ranks educating girls as number 5 of the most impactful solutions to tackle the climate crisis. Under this education, we include women's empowerment.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by climate change, so they need to be equipped with skills for the future they are walking into. when we educate more girls and empower more women, this is a...