Greta Thunberg has featured in a documentary appearing to mock protesters still participting in the climate movement she started.
Fridays for Future was launched by Thunberg in 2018, when she was just 15, after she began skipping school on Fridays to demand action on climate change.
What began in Sweden quickly snowballed into a global movement, inspiring millions of students to walk out of classrooms and take to the streets in rallies around the world.
But in a newly released documentary titled ‘On Tanks into the Climate Crisis – How Activism is Criminalised’, the now 23-year-old appeared shocked when told that a Fridays for Future demonstration was taking place in Berlin.
‘Is it?’ she asked, looking visibly surprised, before bursting into loud laughter. ‘Really? They still do that?’ she shrieked.
An activist friend sitting beside her joined in the laughter, before Thunberg turned towards the camera and shouted: ‘Cut!’
Thunberg first rose to fame as the face of the youth climate movement. In recent years, however, her activism has increasingly shifted towards vocal support for the pro-Palestinian cause.
‘Really? They still do that?’ Thunberg shrieked, while laughing loudly
An activist friend sitting beside her joined in the laughter, before Thunberg turned towards the camera and shouted: ‘Cut!’
Thunberg first rose to fame as the face of the youth climate movement
Last winter, she was arrested in central London at a protest supporting jailed Palestine Action protesters on hunger strike.
Footage showed the 22-year-old activist holding a sign saying ‘I support Palestine Action prisoners, I oppose genocide’ outside the headquarters of an insurance firm.
A City of London Police officer can be seen taking away the placard before asking Thunberg to stand.
Around the same time, Thunberg spoke out in support of several imprisoned Palestine Action activists who were on hunger strike.
She described them as ‘political prisoners’ and joined calls for the charges against them to be dropped.
She was also detained last year by Israel after warships intercepted the aid flotilla headed for Gaza she was on.
Thunberg’s detention was the second such incident, after she was also taken by Israeli forces while onboard a separate ship headed for the Palestinian state last June.
Most recently, she spoke in support of rapper Macklemore after he was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour for pro-Palestine statements made at one of his concerts.
The 23-year-old publicly backed Sheeran’s ‘cancellation’, criticising him in a statement shared online.
In a statement on Instagram, Thunberg said: ‘We are witnessing one of the biggest artists in the world being cancelled because they tried to ‘both sides’ Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
‘This is a clear and undeniable sign that the global consciousness has shifted. The normalisation of an apartheid state, and the attempts to sanitise or justify its actions, will no longer be tolerated. Ed, there is only one victim here: the Palestinian people.’
Following her recent comments appearing to mock climate protesters, the Swede has faced strong backlash online.
One person on X commented: ‘Climate was just the warm-up. Hating Israel is the real job.’
Another person added: ‘It suddenly isn’t a problem anymore. So much for climate ’emergency’. Just shows the credibility that she has.’
‘Fridays for Future was a cult-like movement from the start, whose leaders secretly mocked the protesters back then and now openly mock them on camera,’ said a third.
Others have come to her defense, arguing she was simply mocking the protests for not being ‘radical’ enough.
‘The point is that she finds the FFF protest too nice, too conformist and too middle-class. She laughs at its lack of radicalism. If she is now accused of not caring about climate protection, that is wrong and an oversimplification. What matters to her is the form of protest itself,’ an X user commented under the video.
Thunberg arrived at UN climate talks on Tuesday, in her first appearance since the 2021 talks in Glasgow, where she went viral for dismissing world leaders’ promises as ‘blah, blah, blah.’
Thunberg, who was part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, arriving in Athens
In December, Thunberg was arrested in central London at a protest supporting jailed Palestine Action protesters
Thunberg arrived at UN climate talks on Tuesday, in her first appearance since the 2021 talks in Glasgow
The COP31 conference is being held in the Turkish resort city of Antalya following a year of deadly climate-related disasters, including heat waves and floods, and another energy shock caused by the Iran war.
‘It’s a hypocrisy every year that the host countries are given an opportunity to whitewash themselves and we know that these negotiations are filled with lobbyists, paid by the very destructive industries which are benefiting from our extremely violent status quo,’ Thunberg said as she arrived.
‘Our political and economic systems that have become incompatible with human nature.’
COP31 co-hosts Turkey and Australia are promoting renewable energy and rooftop solar installations, but both still rely heavily on fossil fuels, especially coal, to generate electricity.
Previous hosts, including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, are major oil producers.
Climate change is ‘threatening everything,’ Thunberg said, warning that ‘everything and everyone we love is at stake.’
‘We should act to protect and benefit people rather than constantly sacrificing the global majority and the very planet we are all living on, for a fortunate few to keep making unimaginable profits and maintaining geopolitical power,’ she added.
