"Many of my friends have asked me how I feel. To be honest, I feel very nervous and at the same time excited." These were the first words spoken by Vanessa Nakate, climate activist, on the stage of Youth4Climate: driving ambition, the event dedicated to young activists held in Milan from 28 to 30 September. This gathering represents an opportunity for young people to make their voices heard, in the run-up to the pre-Cop and Cop26, to be held from 30 September to 2 October in Milan and from 31 October to 12 November in Glasgow respectively.

Greta Thunberg conforta Vanessa Nakate dopo l'intervento di quest'ultima sul palco dello Youth4Climate — Greta Thunberg comforts Vanessa Nakate after her speech on the Youth4Climate stage © Miguel Medina/Afp via Getty Images

Vanessa Nakate's full speech at Youth4Climate

"Many of my friends have asked me how I feel. To be honest, I feel very nervous and above all excited. Last week I was with other activists and we were walking through the city. We saw a police vehicle and usually that means something bad has happened.

I asked my friend if we could move away, but she was curious. She insisted on passing by and then told me: I saw the body of a person. There was also another group of people searching for more bodies. It happened after a heavy storm. When I went home, I found out that my mother had also been there while it was raining heavily. She told me that one of the people who was swept away by the floods had been trying to protect their goods from the water, from the storm.

So good morning, my name is Vanessa Nakate and I live in Kampala, Uganda, a country that is one of the most exposed to climate change. In recent years I have witnessed more and more the impact of the climate crisis on the continent. It is absurd because Africa emits less CO2 than any other continent, excluding Antarctica.

Historically, Africa is responsible for only 3 per cent of global emissions, yet it suffers the most severe impacts of the crisis: increasingly powerful hurricanes, devastating floods, droughts.

People are dying, but many others have lost their livelihoods. Drought and floods have left people with nothing but pain, agony, suffering, hunger and death.

A recent World Bank report has said that we could see 86 million displaced people in sub-Saharan Africa due to rising sea levels, desertification, declining fresh water and food scarcity. In recent months there have been deadly heatwaves and wildfires in Algeria, devastating floods in Nigeria. The UN has declared that Madagascar is suffering from hunger caused by climate change. Tens of thousands of people are enduring catastrophic levels of hunger and food insecurity after four years without rainfall.

Who will pay for Madagascar?

It is not only happening on the African continent. Hurricanes Irma, Maria, Dorian and Harold have rendered some Caribbean and Pacific islands uninhabitable.

Six million Bangladeshis have had to leave their homes because of climate change. By 2050, 70 per cent of the country's coastline will disappear under water, creating around 40 million climate refugees.

The IUCN recently announced that more than 38,000 species are included on the Red List, which represents the most comprehensive inventory of species at risk of extinction. Who will pay for the islands we will lose in the Caribbean and the Pacific? Who will pay for the communities that will have to abandon the Bangladeshi coast?

Who will pay for the thousands of extinct species that will be forgotten? How long must we grieve? How long must we witness the extinction of animals? How long will children be forced to marry because their families have lost everything in the climate crisis? How long will children have to go to bed hungry because the water has swept everything away, because the fields are dry due to extreme conditions? How long will we watch them starve, during the drought. Or as they struggle to breathe, during the floods? How can leaders look at what is happening and do nothing to stop it? Our leaders have lost their way and the planet is suffering."

Nobody ever talks about the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis. You can't adapt to the loss of traditions, history and cultures. You can't adapt to hunger. You can't adapt to extinction.

Vanessa Nakate

Il palco dello Youth4Climate — One of the rooms dedicated to young people at Youth4Climate © Youth4Climate

The impacts of the climate crisis must be at the centre of global strategies

"It used to be thought that this only happened in the global south, but as we have seen in recent months, with the wildfires in California and Greece and the floods in Germany and Belgium, loss and damage are possible everywhere. Wherever I go, leaders say they will reach net zero emissions and will do this and that to mitigate the climate crisis, sometimes I hear them talk about the need to provide funds for adaptation efforts, when mitigation will no longer be enough. But as you know, very little of the funding promised to vulnerable nations to face these challenges has actually arrived. It was supposed to come by 2020 but we are still waiting.

But there is one thing I never hear leaders talk about: loss and damage. For many of us, reducing and avoiding is no longer enough.

You can't adapt to the loss of cultures. You can't adapt to the loss of traditions. You can't adapt to the loss of history. You can't adapt to hunger.

And you can't adapt to extinction.

The climate crisis is pushing communities beyond their capacity to adapt. Why is it so easy for leaders to open new coal power plants, build pipelines and extract gas that are destroying our planet, putting children's present and future at risk, yet so difficult to acknowledge that loss and damage are already here?

Climate action makes no distinctions. We need to minimise, yes, but we also need to reckon with the loss and damage that are already a reality.

The time has come to address the needs of those most vulnerable to climate consequences that are no longer avoidable. It is time for leaders to place them at the centre of negotiations. We need funds to deal with loss and damage, both for what has already occurred and for what can no longer be avoided. There must be additional subsidies, beyond those already promised for mitigation and adaptation strategies, and they must be grants, not loans, or they will simply add to existing debts.

It is time for leaders to wake up, to stop talking and start acting. It is time to count the costs and it is time for polluters to pay, to keep their promises.

We don't want empty promises, empty summits, empty conferences. It is time to show us the money and to not forget the most affected communities and areas.

“You can't adapt to extinction.” Vanessa Nakate's speech at Youth4Climate