In 2019, Time magazine named Greta Thunberg its youngest-ever Person of the Year, as world leaders and commentators all hastened to bask in the reflected glory of this new environmental star. Thunberg’s powerful influence was even dubbed the “Greta effect” thanks to thousands of students remaking themselves in her climate warrior image. But, five years on, that blind hero worship of an increasingly militant Thunberg looks naïve at best and dangerous at worst.
Speaking at a rally in the German city of Mannheim on Friday, Thunberg, 21, was a far cry from that angelic Time cover, which followed a keynote speech delivered to the UN in September 2019. “F— Germany,” she said into the microphone on Friday, before descending into giggles as the 700-strong crowd of protesters whooped and clapped. Thunberg added: “And f— Israel.”
The event was billed as a Palestine and climate movement solidarity rally, but the profanity-spewing Swede seemed most intent on stoking anger towards other nations. Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 2019 and 2023. She probably shouldn’t hold out hope for a sixth nod.
Credit: X
It puts figures such as Barack Obama, Ed Miliband, now the Energy Secretary, and António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, in an embarrassing position after fervently backing Thunberg – even if that meant overlooking some of her more uncompromising views and tactics. Others feel vindicated in having voiced opposition.
“Not so long ago, anyone breathing a word of criticism against St Greta was immediately labelled a misogynistic bully and a climate change denier,” recalls Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union. “I myself was on the receiving end of a mobbing on social media for questioning her expertise in climate science, given that she left school at the age of 14. Now, it looks very much as if the heretics were right and the worshippers were credulous fools.”
One former cabinet minister says: “There’s been a whole lot of groupthink around the issue of climate change where everyone competed to wear the biggest hair shirt and shut down the most industries in order to placate people who worshipped Greta Thunberg. But those policies are having a major impact on the economy. If I had the choice of listening to Greta Thunberg or to someone facing redundancy, I know who I’d listen to.”
A media advisor who has worked with Labour says: “It illustrates the danger of using a wild card like Greta – she might fit some of your messaging, or reach different audiences, but you have no control. Now she’s showing her full contempt for democracy and the rule of law. She’s left a lot of people with egg on their faces.”
The likes of Ed Miliband, now the Energy Secretary, and Michael Gove, the former environment secretary, had previously backed Thunberg – PA
Thunberg’s remarks at the Mannheim rally drew blistering criticism. German politician Manuel Hagel told the Jerusalem Post that Thunberg was “moving very consciously in close proximity to anti-Semitism”, while American campaign group StopAntisemitism labelled Thunberg a “climate activist turned Hamas shill”. They added: “Someone should remind Greta that Israel is a global leader in solving the climate challenge.”
But it seems that Thunberg is no longer interested in such nuance, nor in the delicate work of global diplomacy. Instead she has embraced thuggish, even criminal, tactics.
In June 2023 she was charged with disobeying a police order in Malmö, Sweden, while taking part in a traffic-disrupting Reclaim the Future protest. She was sentenced to pay fines of 2,500 Krona (£179), but just hours after that conviction, Thunberg, undeterred, attended another protest which again blocked oil trucks. That October she was found guilty of disobeying a police order to disperse and fined, although she avoided a potential prison sentence of up to six months.
Yet Thunberg remained committed to that extreme course of action. She was arrested in London in October 2023 and charged with failure to comply with a lawful order to disperse, and has joined forces with the controversial Extinction Rebellion for rallies in which they blocked traffic near The Hague in the Netherlands and in Helsinki. At the Hague rally in July, police had to deploy water cannons when protestors, including Thunberg, refused to disperse.
However, it’s not just her methods which are proving divisive, but her entwining of those long-held climate views with pro-Palestinian activism. In October 2023 Thunberg urged her social media followers to support Palestinians in Gaza, but made no mention of Hamas’s October 7 attack. She added another post the following day with a belated condemnation of October 7, though with a call for “an immediate ceasefire”, amid Israel’s initial military response to the attack. Palestine has since featured in many of her speeches.
In May 2024 Thunberg joined thousands of angry protestors at a Stop Israel rally outside the venue for the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. The 20-year-old singer Eden Golan, who was representing Israel in the competition, and who had separately received death threats, was ordered to stay in her hotel room for her own security. But Thunberg proudly told Reuters, of the protest: “Young people are leading the way and showing the world how we should react to this.”
Thunberg was removed by police at a Stop Israel rally outside the venue for the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö in May – AFP
Unsurprisingly, other climate activists are now distancing themselves from Thunberg – including the German chapter of Fridays for Future, the international movement of students who skip school on Fridays to hold climate demonstrations. In November 2023 chapter head Luisa Neubauer criticised Thunberg’s “one-sided” view of the war in Gaza, and told Die Zeit that the German branch would have to examine “with whom we still have a basis to work based on common values”.
But what about the many other figures who eagerly aligned themselves with Thunberg? They range from leading politicians to Hollywood A-listers and even Pope Francis. In April 2019 the latter gave her his blessing to continue her work.
Former American president Barack Obama was equally enamoured when he met Thunberg in September that year. Afterwards he wrote on social media that she was “one of our planet’s greatest advocates”, “unafraid to push for real action”, and that she embodied his and Michelle’s vision for their Obama Foundation: “A future shaped by young leaders like [Thunberg].”
Former US president Barack Obama wrote on social media that Thunberg was ‘one of our planet’s greatest advocates’ after meeting her in 2019 – Reuters
What must Obama have been thinking when he read Thunberg’s tirade on X last month ahead of the US election, in which she raged that no matter which candidate won, America would still be “an imperialist, hyper-capitalist world power that will ultimately continue to lead the world further into a racist, unequal world with an ever increasingly escalating climate and environmental emergency.” Thunberg urged American citizens to “fill the streets, block, organise, boycott, occupy”.
It’s extraordinary to think that, back in February 2019, Thunberg was standing on a stage with then-president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker as he made climate commitments for the next EU budget, after praising her for bringing about change. Thunberg was also fêted in April that year by British politicians.
Michael Gove said that Thunberg’s was “the voice of our conscience”, while Ed Miliband gushed: “You have woken us up. We thank you”, and Jeremy Corbyn wrote on social media that it was “a pleasure welcoming UK youth climate strikers and Greta Thunberg to Parliament”. Guterres met Thunberg in June 2019, when he declared: “I trust young people like Greta Thunberg to push my generation, to push their parents, to push societies to save our planet & our future.” Later that year, he invited the then 16-year-old to address the UN’s Climate Action Summit in New York.
Meanwhile Leonard DiCaprio shared pictures of himself with Thunberg on Instagram in November 2019, calling her “a leader of our time” – shortly after she addressed the Cop25 summit in Madrid. The BBC also got in on the action, inviting her to guest edit Radio Four’s Today programme in December. Thunberg’s edition featured interviews with David Attenborough and Bank of England chief Mark Carney.
Thunberg has essentially thrown that idolisation back in everyone’s faces. In 2021 she mocked Boris Johnson and others in her opening speech for a youth climate summit in Italy, claiming that “our so-called leaders” offered words but no action.
Instead of supporting open debate and free speech, in December 2022 she backed Edinburgh University students who blocked the screening of a film, Adult Human Female, that the union branded “transphobic”.
Allying yourself with Thunberg was once a cheap and easy win. Now, it costs the earth.
