Greta Thunberg appears in a documentary scene that has been interpreted as ridiculing people who continue to take part in the climate movement she helped launch.
Thunberg founded Fridays for Future in 2018, aged 15, after beginning a weekly school strike in Sweden to demand stronger action on climate change.
The protest quickly grew into an international campaign, encouraging millions of students to leave their classrooms and join climate demonstrations in cities around the world.
However, in the recently released documentary On Tanks into the Climate Crisis – How Activism is Criminalised, the now 23-year-old appeared taken aback when she was told that a Fridays for Future protest was taking place in Berlin.
“Is it?” she asked, apparently surprised, before laughing loudly. “Really? They still do that?” she exclaimed.
An activist seated next to her also laughed, prompting Thunberg to look towards the camera and call out: “Cut!”
Thunberg initially became internationally known as the leading face of youth climate activism. In recent years, her public campaigning has increasingly focused on outspoken support for the pro-Palestinian cause.
“Really? They still do that?” Thunberg said, laughing during the documentary.
The activist beside her laughed too, before Thunberg faced the camera and said: “Cut!”
Thunberg draws criticism over comments about climate protests
Last winter, Thunberg was arrested in central London while attending a demonstration in support of jailed Palestine Action activists who were on hunger strike.
Video from the protest showed the 22-year-old holding a placard that read: “I support Palestine Action prisoners, I oppose genocide,” outside the headquarters of an insurance company.
A City of London Police officer was filmed removing the sign before instructing Thunberg to stand.
Around the same period, she publicly backed several imprisoned Palestine Action activists who were refusing food in protest.
Thunberg referred to the activists as “political prisoners” and supported demands for the allegations against them to be withdrawn.
She was also detained by Israel last year after warships intercepted an aid flotilla travelling towards Gaza, on which she was a passenger.
It was the second time she had been detained in similar circumstances. Israeli forces had previously taken her into custody while she was aboard another vessel bound for the Palestinian territory the previous June.
More recently, Thunberg voiced support for rapper Macklemore after he was removed from Ed Sheeran’s tour following pro-Palestinian comments made during one of his concerts.
The 23-year-old also criticised Sheeran in an online statement, publicly supporting the decision to “cancel” him.
Writing 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.”
Her apparent mockery of 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 shows how little credibility she has.”
A third wrote: “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.”
Others defended Thunberg, suggesting that her laughter was aimed at what she viewed as the movement’s failure to take more radical action.
“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.
Thunberg attended UN climate talks on Tuesday, marking her first appearance at the event since the 2021 summit in Glasgow. She went viral at those talks after dismissing political leaders’ climate promises as “blah, blah, blah.”
Thunberg, a participant in the Global Sumud Flotilla, arrives in Athens.
Thunberg was arrested in central London in December while supporting jailed Palestine Action protesters.
She attended the UN climate talks on Tuesday for the first time since the 2021 Glasgow summit.
Thunberg condemns hypocrisy at COP31 summit
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 Iran war.
“Every year, there is hypocrisy in giving host countries an opportunity to whitewash themselves. We know these negotiations are filled with lobbyists paid by the very destructive industries benefiting from our extremely violent status quo,” Thunberg said upon her arrival.
She added: “Our political and economic systems have become incompatible with human nature.”
COP31 co-hosts Turkey and Australia have highlighted renewable power and rooftop solar projects, although both nations remain heavily dependent on fossil fuels, particularly coal, for electricity generation.
Earlier host countries, including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, have also been significant 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 improve people’s lives instead of continually sacrificing the global majority and the planet we all depend on so that a fortunate few can continue making unimaginable profits and retaining geopolitical power,” she said.
