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Adenike Oladosu
The agricultural economist and climate activist Adenike Oladosu is the founder of Fridays for Future Nigeria and an alumna of the Hamburg-based New Institute’s Black Feminism and the Polycrisis Programme. She is currently an International Climate Protection Fellow working with the political scientist Claus Leggewie on the Panel on Planetary Thinking at Justus Liebig University Giessen.
Every one of us can do something. We distributed ecological plant protection products and organic fertiliser and taught the women how to use it in order to protect the climate and improve yields. This is ecofeminism. It’s all about climate justice and empowering women and girls. In their everyday lives and work, women have a close relationship with nature. They are hit particularly hard by climate change. Moreover, they often don’t have access to education and resources to enable them to respond to the impacts.
Many conflicts in Nigeria are actually a consequence of climate change, but not many people realise this. Be it flooding or advancing desertification: climate change destroys livelihoods, people set off and flee. This leads to animosities, conflicts and outbreaks of violence. Because families can’t feed their daughters, they are forced to become child brides. Not least to prevent this, it’s important that women become more independent.
I’m an agricultural scientist and, in 2018, I founded the Nigerian section of Fridays for Future. I tweeted and blogged to make contact with others. It developed into a pan-African movement with thousands of active members. This is encouraging. We live in a world of polycrises and must think globally – but every place has its own perspective on things and can come up with its own solutions.
Many industrialised countries are counting on a global hydrogen economy to make their industries climate neutral. But to do so they need African ground, African resources. Climate change is already impacting Africa particularly hard although Africans have hardly contributed to it. I say, “Put an end to carbon colonialism!” Young Africans are innovative. Why don’t we campaign on our own behalf for the many solutions for sustainable energy production, made in Africa? On a large scale, global structures must become fairer. Every single person must “act now!” Even if rich countries can still pay for the impacts of climate change, we must understand that climate change is not only an ecological but also a social crisis. And that will affect us all at some stage – irrespective of where we are at home in the world.