October 2023 Young Planet Leader – Patience Nabukalu
Patience Nabukalu is a climate, gender, and human rights activist. She is an organizer for Friday’s for Future Uganda, and the founder of Youth Empowerment Initiative Uganda. Her efforts are to fight against wetland degradation, reduce fossil fuel production, and discourage plastic pollution in our natural resources as a way to reduce climate change.
Patience is passionate about climate action which is why she has dedicated herself to raising awareness in schools, communities, and all over the world, through social media, community engagement, wetland clean-ups, and through local and international climate action protests.
For the past three years, she has been running a campaign to stop EACOP – a project for the giant European gas company called TOTAL. EACOP is the EAST AFRICAN CRUDE OIL PIPELINE French project which is a clear example of exploitation in Africa and all over the Global South. It is said to be a 1444 km pipeline running from Uganda to Tanzania. If built, EACOP would be the longest heated oil pipeline in the world and would release 34 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year at peak production – having a significant impact on the escalation of climate breakdown.
People’s land was taken even without compensation, leaving many homeless and poor. The pipeline is to put critical biodiversity at risk such as lakes, rivers, national parks, animals and birds as well as aquatic life. One-half of this pipeline passes through the Lake Victoria basin, which poses a great risk to clean water sources.
With their efforts, Patience and others have put in, they have seen some banks and insurance companies drop out of the project. The fact that we have seen banks withdrawing gives them hope. This is about our people, our land, and our heritage.
There is no climate justice without human rights, people over profit!
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Follow Patience:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patiencenabukalu
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfPugKv0tVTRl4zS2k-woYw