It’s Getting Hot In Here: This Is How Gen Zs In Africa Feel About Climate Change
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This story includes editorial and research contributions from Kenga literary editor Anna-Maria Poku. Thanks to all the people who contributed to this story by participating in our survey.
Photo by Abdulai Sayni
A study by the ‘Global Environment Change’ journal has shown that the most powerful emotion driving climate change activism is anger.
Sentiments have redirected away from guilt, fear at the threat of climate change, towards anger at the surrounding causes; selfishness, ego, individual values. Anxiety is slowly becoming a strong contender. With buzzwords like “menu anxiety” and “eco-anxiety” creeping into the mainstream, who’s noticing African Gen Z’s driving emotion?
“I don’t think it’s ‘fear’ anymore”, Nigerian Gen Z climate activist Joshua Gabriel Oluwaseyi tells us. “There’s so much doom and gloom in the climate movement already, I think it’s just hope is what drives me, hope for the future that I want to see.”
We’ve surveyed a sample of nearly 70 Gen Zs across Africa and the diaspora and found a nearly even split in sentiments. While 34.3% of our respondents feel somewhat concerned about climate change, and 58.2% responding “very concerned”, the pendulum swings between feelings of optimism and pessimism. 35.8% responded as feeling “somewhat optimistic” about the future of the planet, while 40.3% feel “somewhat pessimistic”. But they are willing to take individual action, with 73.1% willing to pay more for more sustainable and eco-friendly products. More surprisingly, more than a third of them (37.3%) said they would even go as far as giving up their gadgets and the internet permanently if it meant saving the planet.
When asked their opinions on the best ways for young people to contribute towards climate action, the responses were elementary: a change in personal attitudes, reducing plastic use, reducing private vehicular traffic, etc. The climate problem in Africa however, has evolved far ahead of these solutions. And our respondents recognize this, 68.7% believe that African governments should be at the forefront of climate action, in addition to individual actors.
General climate sentiment in Africa
While a more sustainable future may be in sight for the Western world, Africa is set back by all the years it will take to sift through the gargantuan mass of imported clothing, textile, and e-waste. The continent accounts for only four percent of global emissions, yet its people suffer the worst effects. Environmental advocate Edudzi Nyomi shared what he termed as perhaps an extremist view; that “Africa should not be contributing or contributing much to climate change mitigation” because of the fact that we only emit 2-5% of greenhouse gas emissions. At the geographical centre of the world, in Accra, lies the largest graveyard for “obroni wawu”—dead white men’s clothes, and e-waste. In Kenya, 37 million items of plastic clothing, what Clean Up Kenya have dubbed #Trashion from the EU stunt any individual climate efforts. Efforts to “re-use” in our second-hand markets are futile, as with the growth of fast fashion comes, as Betterman Simidi Musasia, founder of Clean Up Kenya calls it, “a trade in hidden waste.” According to the Or foundation, about 40% of clothing leaves Kantamanto as waste.
At the just held Africa Climate Week 2023 in Nairobi, taglined ‘Charting a Fresh Course for Climate Change’, the solutions echoed the same arguments from years back, Africa requires financial and technological support from the global community to advance our fight against climate change. Our survey on the other hand reveals that Gen Z believes strongly that it is regional policy that will strengthen our resilience, with some out of the 68% consensus stating a change in policy, demanding equality among global communities, and proactive advocacy. One standout response, however, tersely submitted, “Let’s focus on issues like daily standard of living first.”
Why African Gen Z may not care to participate in climate action
While the global Gen Z stance is fatalistic and anxious, African youth are more preoccupied with the stark reality of our immediate future. Sickly polar bear imagery is so distant for the Gen Z living on the continent. When heavy rainfalls happen, flooding is firstly attributed to poor roads than to climate change—on the 21st of September, Ghanaian youth are picketing the president residence in a #OccupyJulorbihouse protest against resource mismanagement. Research by The Conversation revealed the disparity in climate threat perceptions depending on where you live, with cities fronting climate action. With anger directed towards governments, the state of employment, defeatism regarding housing and the typical, linear, school-to-work-to-owning-a-home pipeline, we can only hope for a greener future. Where you live matters, and in Africa, priorities are currently directed towards a more dire, dystopian present, than a future on fire.
Why Afro Gen Z cares about climate action
Still, one could argue not all Afro Gen Zs are not taking the climate crisis lying down with activists like Uganda’s Vanessa Nakate at the forefront of activism on the continent. Nakate, who began her climate activism journey in 2018, did so when she became increasingly aware of and concerned about how the climate crisis was affecting the lives of many Ugandans. She made international headlines in 2020, when she was cropped out of a news photo in which she appeared alongside Greta Thunberg and other white climate activists. Her response, “you didn’t erase a photo, you erased a continent”, rightfully made waves and she has since used her platform and influence to affect real change in the climate activism space further supported by her appointment as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2022.
Afro Gen Z activists are also reaching audiences the best ways they know how through Gen Z friendly media like podcasts. Rwandan climate enthusiast Tshepiso Masilonyane’s podcast Climate Climax is an example of Afro Gen Z centered climate activism. The podcast, tagged as a “climate-action podcast aiming to decolonise climate narratives and mainstream dialogue on the global climate agenda” focuses on dissecting climate change and its impact within an African context.
Active involvement from Gen Z activists like Nakate and Masilonyane makes sense when the state of affairs in Africa is considered. According to the Yale Climate Connections, since 2022 alone, five of Africa’s top 30 deadliest weather disasters have occurred, from droughts in Sudan and Uganda to Cyclone Freddy in Malawi and floods in Nigeria and South Africa, all with staggering death tolls. The fact is, Africa is feeling the effects of climate change in more ways than one. Edudzi Nyomi tells us that while older people might fail to appreciate the more immediate effects of climate change like we all realized with Covid-19, this is where Afro Gen Z’s are focusing their efforts on. He adds that “climate change seems more abstract and that is why some activists [like Nakate] are aiming to communicate the realities”. At the end of the day, to quote environmental enthusiast, Edwin Owusu Ansah, “young people getting into the position of power to effect change, along the lines of climate policies is what will help prepare us and prevent some of the consequences of climate change”
Intersectional activist Raaesah Noor-Mahomed believes in the depth that our generation brings to the fight against climate change. She tells us, “We bring a different perspective, a raging fire and hopes and dreams for the future that we will not stop fighting for.” In a sentence, her fight is essential to offset the legacies of injustice and disproportionate effects of the climate crisis. In a word, her fight against climate change is driven by “Hope.”
Clearly, some Afro Gen Zs recognise this and are putting in the work to make tangible change happen, vowing not to sit back and watch it all burn.