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Clime02


Climate activism as a global paradigm: the participatory challenge of a vanguard movement 
Convenors:
Hauke-Peter Vehrs (University of Cologne)
Lamine Doumbia (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Katrin Sowa (University of Cologne)
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Format:
Panel
Stream:
Climate change
Location:
Room 1224
Sessions:
Friday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin

Short Abstract:

Climate activism is a global phenomenon that motivates citizens in many African countries to campaign for a climate-friendly future. However, challenges for African activists can differ from the general trend, as climate concerns remain contested and compete with a myriad of other future visions.

Long Abstract:

The Fridays for Future Movement has become a global movement of climate activism with enormous outreach. Activities accumulate majorly in Europe and northern America (https://fridaysforfuture.org/action-map/map/). However, on the African continent, climate activism is also gaining momentum. The continent’s activism hotspot is East Africa, especially Uganda and Kenya, where more than half of the activities take place. But also Yacouba Sawadogo from Burkina Faso, winner of the UN Champions of the Earth Award 2020, is one of numerous people who apply indigenous knowledge in the fight against desertification. Furthermore, new pan-African alliances are formed: the research network ‘Future Climate for Africa’ brings together African scientists to address the major challenges of the continent in the context of climate change studies.

Yet, facing the climate crisis and reaching out to the public and to national decision makers remains a political, bureaucratic and practical challenge. African activists face situations that differ from contexts in the “Global North”, where school or hunger strikes are used as lever for climate goals by the privileged. Moreover, many African governments outline economic development and the expansion of large infrastructure projects in their future vision agendas. However, the question how this can be achieved with climate compatibility often remains intangible. Overall, sustainability and global climate change are contested discourses in the midst of national, regional and neo-colonial future prospects for the continent, in the nexus of scientific and public knowledges, local perspectives, and climate activism.

The panel invites both activists and researchers on activism to share their experiences and insights of the global and local organisation of climate activism in Africa, who address how actors deal with contestations of climate change knowledge and the implementation of mitigation strategies on the ground. What are challenges and repercussions, but also success stories of climate activism on the African continent?

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Friday 10 June, 2022, -
 
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