Greta Thunberg has intensified her criticism of climate protests after a video appeared to show her mocking campaigners who remain involved in the movement she founded.
In a newly released documentary, On Tanks Into The Climate Crisis – How Activism Is Criminalised, the Swedish activist laughed after being told that a Fridays For Future demonstration was taking place in Berlin.
Thunberg launched Fridays For Future in 2018 at the age of 15, when she began missing school on Fridays to demand stronger action on climate change. The protest soon grew into a global movement, with students in countries around the world joining in.
In the clip, which spread rapidly online, Thunberg appears to laugh at the news that demonstrations are still being held. “Really? They still do that?” she says.
Following a wave of criticism, the 23-year-old activist used Instagram on Friday to reaffirm her position. She accused climate protesters of distancing themselves from her increasingly outspoken support for the pro-Palestinian cause.
“For context, this was the same day as we were blocking a weapons manufacturer there, and just found out there simultaneously was a police permitted climate demonstration in a famously white middleclass area by the very same German climate movement who cancelled and ‘distanced themselves’ from me for saying that Palestinians are humans too…,” she wrote.
“Make no mistake; the world IS ridiculing Germany for being detached from reality and being stuck in extremely racist mindsets and tactics while being shamelessly complicit in genocide, ecocide and climate crisis…”
German journalist and filmmaker Hubertus Koch said in an Instagram video that the clip had been “taken out of context”.
Thunberg’s activism has increasingly focused on outspoken support for the pro-Palestinian cause.
The remarks came after the filmmaker who recorded Thunberg’s reaction defended her over the footage.
Hubertus Koch, a German journalist and filmmaker, said in an Instagram video that the clip had been “taken out of context”.
“Greta does a great deal more than just participate in demonstrations – that is, practising civil disobedience, suing states, and so on,” he said.
Koch said Thunberg had moved beyond her Fridays For Future era and concluded that organised rallies and panel discussions were “ineffective”.
“And that’s why she laughs – in the sense of, ‘They’re still doing that’,” he said.
“Greta herself came to the conclusion that… one must operate from the outside, in opposition, and with strong activism.”
Thunberg’s comments drew fierce criticism online. One person on X wrote: “Climate was just the warm-up. Hating Israel is the real job.”
Another said: “It suddenly isn’t a problem anymore. So much for climate ‘emergency’. Just shows the credibility that she has.”
A third commenter 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.”
Thunberg became internationally known as the leading figure in the youth climate movement. In recent years, however, her campaigning has increasingly centred on vocal support for the pro-Palestinian cause.
Last winter, she was arrested in central London during a protest in support of jailed Palestine Action activists who were on hunger strike.
Footage showed the then 22-year-old holding a sign that read: “I support Palestine Action prisoners, I oppose genocide,” outside the headquarters of an insurance company.
A City of London Police officer was seen taking the placard from her before asking Thunberg to stand.
Around the same time, she voiced support for several imprisoned Palestine Action activists taking part in a hunger strike.
She called them “political prisoners” and backed demands for the charges against them to be dropped.
Thunberg 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 such circumstances, after Israeli forces took her from another ship bound for the Palestinian state the previous June.
More recently, she expressed support for rapper Macklemore after he was removed from Ed Sheeran’s tour following pro-Palestinian comments made during one of his concerts.
In a statement on Instagram, the 23-year-old publicly criticised Sheeran’s “cancellation”, writing: “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.”
Greta Thunberg gestures during a press conference at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Turkey.
Thunberg sits inside a police van after being arrested by officers in London.
Thunberg arrived at the COP31 UN climate talks on Tuesday, making her first appearance at the event since the 2021 summit in Glasgow. She went viral at that conference after dismissing world leaders’ promises as “blah, blah, blah”.
The latest conference is taking place in the Turkish resort city of Antalya after a year marked by deadly climate-related disasters, including heatwaves and floods, as well as another energy shock linked to 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 on arrival.
“Our political and economic systems have become incompatible with human nature.”
COP31 co-hosts Turkey and Australia are promoting renewable energy and rooftop solar installations. Both countries, however, continue to depend heavily on fossil fuels, particularly coal, for electricity generation.
Earlier host nations, including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, are also 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.
