Greta Thunberg has appeared in a documentary scene that seems to poke fun at activists who continue to participate in the climate movement she helped launch.
Thunberg founded Fridays for Future in 2018, at the age of 15, after beginning to miss school each Friday to call for stronger action on climate change.
The protest quickly expanded beyond Sweden, inspiring millions of students worldwide to leave their classrooms and join climate demonstrations.
However, in the newly released documentary On Tanks into the Climate Crisis – How Activism is Criminalised, the now 23-year-old appeared surprised when she was told that a Fridays for Future protest was taking place in Berlin.
“Is it?” she asked, apparently taken aback, before breaking into loud laughter. “Really? They still do that?” she exclaimed.
An activist seated beside her also began laughing, prompting Thunberg to turn toward the camera and call out: “Cut!”
Thunberg initially became internationally known as the leading figure of the youth climate movement. In recent years, however, much of her activism has focused on outspoken support for the pro-Palestinian cause.
“Really? They still do that?” Thunberg said while laughing
The activist beside Thunberg joined in before she looked at the camera and shouted, “Cut!”
Thunberg became a global symbol of the youth climate movement
Last winter, she was arrested in central London during a demonstration in support of jailed Palestine Action protesters who were on hunger strike.
Video showed the 22-year-old holding a sign outside an insurance company’s headquarters that read: “I support Palestine Action prisoners, I oppose genocide.”
A City of London Police officer was seen removing the placard and then instructing Thunberg to stand.
Around the same period, she publicly supported several imprisoned Palestine Action activists who were refusing food in protest.
She referred to the activists as “political prisoners” and backed demands for the charges against them to be withdrawn.
Thunberg was also detained by Israel last year after warships intercepted an aid flotilla traveling toward Gaza, on which she was a passenger.
It was the second time she had been detained by Israeli forces, following an earlier incident in June when she was taken from another vessel bound for the Palestinian territory.
More recently, she expressed support for rapper Macklemore after he was removed from Ed Sheeran’s tour over pro-Palestinian comments made during one of his concerts.
The 23-year-old also criticized Sheeran in a statement posted online, saying the singer’s removal was an example of “cancellation.”
In an Instagram statement, Thunberg wrote: “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.”
Her apparent mockery of current climate protesters has since triggered a wave of criticism online.
One user on X wrote: “Climate was just the warm-up. Hating Israel is the real job.”
Another commented: “It suddenly isn’t a problem anymore. So much for the climate ‘emergency’. It only highlights how little credibility she has.”
A third critic said: “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.”
Other viewers defended Thunberg, suggesting that her laughter was aimed at the demonstrations’ lack of radicalism rather than at climate action itself.
“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,” one X user wrote beneath the video.
On Tuesday, Thunberg attended the UN climate talks for the first time since the 2021 conference in Glasgow, where she became widely known for dismissing leaders’ promises as “blah, blah, blah.”
Thunberg, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, arrives in Athens
Thunberg was arrested in central London in December during a demonstration supporting jailed Palestine Action protesters
Thunberg attended the UN climate talks on Tuesday, marking her first appearance since Glasgow in 2021
COP31 is taking place in the Turkish resort city of Antalya after a year marked by deadly climate disasters, including severe heatwaves and flooding, as well as another energy crisis linked to the war in Iran.
“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 benefiting from our extremely violent status quo,” Thunberg said on arrival.
She added: “Our political and economic systems have become incompatible with human nature.”
COP31 co-hosts Turkey and Australia are highlighting renewable energy and rooftop solar power, although both countries remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels—particularly coal—for electricity generation.
Earlier host nations, including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, are also significant oil producers.
Climate change is “threatening everything,” Thunberg warned, adding that “everything and everyone we love is at stake.”
“We should act to protect and improve people’s lives, rather than constantly sacrificing the global majority and the planet we all depend on so that a fortunate few can continue making unimaginable profits and preserving geopolitical power,” she said.
