Greta Thunberg is an 18-year-old environmental activist from Sweden. She is one of the youngest activists in the world, being only 16 when she received the Times’s Person of the Year award. Thunberg’s school strikes for climate change became well-known around the world, with many pupils from across the globe taking part in these to stand with her in her campaign. By December 2018, over 20,000 students in countries such as the UK and Japan joined her in skipping school to protest. She missed around 3 weeks of school at the start of her striking until she got the attention of the Swedish Parliament. This helped her in the start of the global movement which she has now created, called Fridays For Future (FFF). This involved encouraging school pupils to skip school on a Friday and protest for climate change. The movement became well-known and was given a lot of publicity which brought it to the attention of world leaders.

In one of her most famous speeches at a UN climate conference in New York Thunberg told world leaders “You all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,”. This was only the beginning of speeches Thunberg would go on to make. Greta does not fly due to how much this can affect the climate, and instead she often takes very long journeys by train or boat. For the climate conference in New York, Greta took a two-week long zero-emission yacht across the Atlantic Ocean. This is an example of her incredible commitment to making a change to the climate problem currently faced around the world.

The book ‘No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference’ contains all of Greta’s speeches, with proceeds being donated to charity. As well as this, a documentary about her was released in 2020. Recently, Thunberg visited Glasgow during the Cop26 climate change conference which took place over a 2-week period. She took part in protests across Glasgow and encouraged so many people of all ages to get involved in the protests to campaign for changes to be made. After Cop26 Greta criticised the agreement which had been struck, stating it was very vague and contained too many loopholes. She emphasised that the climate crisis is about the time limit faced where changes need to be made before it is too late.

Thunberg continues to influence people, particularly the younger generations, around the world to get involved in climate change campaigning and protesting in order to try and help for changes to be made.