Internationally renowned climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, and development charity Christian Aid are joining forces in a bold campaign bid to force the world’s biggest polluters and governments to pay into a central loss and damage fund to help those disproportionately affected by the climate crisis.
With world leaders meeting at COP27 next month, the “Hack the Agenda” campaign is hijacking social media conversation around news stories, big business, the climate crisis and greenwashing in order to raise awareness about loss and damage. Now the campaign is crashing the conversation around the resignation of the UK Prime Minister, using synthetic media technology to put Vanessa Nakate's voice into Liz Truss' mouth.
Vanessa Nakate, from Uganda, warns: “I almost never hear leaders talk about the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis. We need to do everything we can to make sure this issue is moved up the agenda and ensure the demands for compensation from those of us on the frontlines are heard loud and clear.”
The campaign, developed by creative agency Impero and shared by Greta Thunberg, is supported on social media and follows a year of unprecedented climate emergencies. Pakistan has been devastated by floods, whilst East Africa is facing its worst drought in 40 years. The International Institute for Environment and Development projects the economic cost of human-caused climate change by 2030 alone to be USD 400 billion a year.
Despite the issue of loss and damage being recognised by world leaders since 1992, only the Scottish Government and Denmark have committed dedicated finances towards a loss and damage fund. Without this fund, Christisn Aid warns those who are least responsible for the climate crisis will continue to suffer the greatest and are urging people to back their petition.
Pete Moorey, Head of Campaigns and UK Advocacy, said: “Countries like the UK have done the most historically to cause the climate crisis, but it is the most vulnerable communities globally that are facing the gravest consequences. By creating an international climate fund, paid into by the biggest polluters, we can tackle the damage caused by the climate crisis and help people build a life free from poverty and injustice.”
Alastair Mills, Joint Executive Creative Director at Impero, added: “It’s been slipping off the agenda for too long. From Coca-Cola announcing its farcical sponsorship of COP27 to the devastating floods in Pakistan, we’ll be putting loss and damage at the heart of the conversation and ensuring it doesn’t get ignored.”
END.
Notes to editors:
Please see Vanessa Nakate's tweet, retweeted by Greta Thunberg: https://twitter.com/vanessa_vash/status/1583177637681586181
About Hack the Agenda:
Working with creative agency Impero, Christian Aid is launching a 5-week campaign in the lead up to COP27 to raise awareness of the loss and damage the climate crisis is inflicting. The charity is hijacking social conversations to turn attention towards the effects of climate change on the Global South and to get UK citizens to help pressure the government.
The ‘Hack The Agenda’ campaign involves the use of Twitter and Instagram to refocus the conversations surrounding COP27 onto the challenges faced by those most affected by climate change. Through identifying and targeting key talking points in the run up to COP27, the campaign looks to put loss and damage at the heart of the conversation and ensures it doesn't get ignored.
Through the utilisation of relentless and unignorable visuals combined with real-time responses that provide hard hitting facts, the campaign is targeting major stakeholders surrounding COP27 in the political, media, corporate landscapes. The campaign will be unified through the hashtag #HackTheAgenda to track and engage people in dialogue.
Working with Reface startup and ISD Group in Ukraine, Christian Aid has committed a particularly audacious hack of crashing the Conservative Party Conference using synthetic media technology to put climate activist Vanessa Nakate’s voice into Liz Truss’ mouth. From within the Prime Minister, Vanessa’s message on climate injustice and the need for a loss and damage fund found a wider audience. The idea has already caught the attention of her fellow activist Greta Thunberg.
About Christian Aid:
Christian Aid believes the world can and must be swiftly changed to one where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. They work globally for profound change that eradicates the causes of poverty, striving to achieve equality, dignity and freedom for all, regardless of faith or nationality. They are part of a wider movement for social justice and provide urgent, practical and effective assistance where need is great, tackling the effects of poverty as well as its root causes.
Christian Aid’s loss and damage petition can be found here: https://www.christianaid.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/climate-change/loss-and-damage
About Reface:
Reface is a Ukrainian startup, empowering people to express themselves in the digital world with easy-to-use cutting-edge AI technologies. The Reface app hit #1 in the App Store soon after release and was listed among the best apps of 2020 by Google Play. Celebrities including Elon Musk, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, and Miley Cyrus have shared refaced videos. As of October 2022, the Reface app has been installed 200+ million times, and users have generated more than 6 billion pieces of synthetic media.
