Greta Thunberg Fast Facts

CNN

17-04-2025

Here's a look at the life of environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
Birth date: January 3, 2003
Birth place: Stockholm, Sweden
Birth name: Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg
Father: Svante Thunberg, actor
Mother: Malena Ernman, opera singer
Her name is pronounced grAY-tah tOOn-bairk.
Has spoken openly about living with Asperger's, referring to the diagnosis as a 'superpower' that helps her activism.
Has said she was inspired by the school walkouts in the United States that followed the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2019, the youngest individual to be recognized.
Has a species of beetle named after her: 'Nelloptodes gretae.'
Thunberg's published books include: 'No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference,' 'The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions' and 'Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis.'
August 2018 - Thunberg starts skipping school to stage sit-ins outside Sweden's parliament, holding a sign stating 'Skolstrejk för klimatet' (School Strike for Climate). Soon, others join and the group decides to continue their strike, forming the Fridays for Future (FFF) movement.
December 2018 - Thunberg gives a speech at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Poland, telling negotiators, 'You are not mature enough to tell it like is. Even that burden you leave to us children. But I don't care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.'
January 24, 2019 - Thunberg gives an impromptu speech to delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
April 17, 2019 - Meets with Pope Francis after his weekly audience at the Vatican.
August 28, 2019 - Arrives in New York to speak at the UN Climate Action Summit in September after sailing across the Atlantic Ocean for 15 days on a zero-emissions sailboat to reduce the environmental impact of her journey.
September 16, 2019 - Thunberg meets with former US President Barack Obama in Washington, DC.
September 18, 2019 - Thunberg appears in front of the US Congress before a hearing on climate change. Instead of prepared remarks, she refers to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's special report on global warming, which reported a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
September 20, 2019 - Thunberg speaks at a climate strike in New York, part of a global climate strike organized by Thunberg and other school students. According to Thunberg, 4,638 events are scheduled to take place in 139 countries from September 20-27.
September 23, 2019 - Thunberg speaks at the UN Climate Action Summit. 'We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth,' Thunberg tells the UN General Assembly. 'How dare you?' Later that day, Thunberg and 15 other children file a complaint with the UN alleging that five of the world's major economies have violated their human rights by not taking adequate action to stop the unfolding climate crisis.
December 3, 2019 - Thunberg arrives in Lisbon, Portugal, for the 25th UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain, after nearly three weeks travelling across the Atlantic Ocean on a boat using solar panels and hydro-generators for electricity.
December 6, 2019 - Thunberg criticizes world leaders gathered for the COP25 conference in Madrid for not doing enough to stop the ecological crisis.
January 29, 2020 - In an Instagram post, announces she is applying for a trademark for her name and the Fridays for Future climate crisis movement she created. By filing for a trademark, something she says she had no prior interest in doing, she intends to protect her movement and its activities.
February 25, 2020 - Thunberg meets Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai at the University of Oxford.
November 13, 2020 - The documentary 'I Am Greta' premieres on Hulu.
September 28, 2021 - Thunberg speaks at the Youth4Climate forum in Milan, Italy, imitating world leaders by repeating their commonly used expressions on the climate crisis, shooting them down as empty words and unfulfilled promises.
November 5, 2021 - Leading a youth protest outside the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Thunberg criticizes world leaders and calls the summit a 'failure.'
January 17, 2023 - Thunberg is detained by German police at a protest over the expansion of a coal mine in the west German village of Lützerath. She is released later that evening. A police spokesperson tells CNN this is the second time Thunberg had been detained at the site.
March 1, 2023 - According to a spokesperson for the Oslo police district, 10 people including Thunberg were removed by police from the entrance of Norway's ministry of finance. Demonstrators blocked access to Norwegian government buildings to protest two windfarms built on Sámi reindeer grazing grounds.
July 24, 2023 - A Swedish court fines Thunberg after finding her guilty of disobeying law enforcement, a Malmö City Court spokesperson tells CNN. Thunberg was charged with 'the crime of disobedience to law and order' earlier in July after participating in a protest on June 19 which blocked oil tankers in part of Malmö harbor. Thunberg is fined a total of 2,500 Swedish krona (about $240).
October 17, 2023 - Thunberg is arrested at a protest outside the Energy Intelligence Forum, an annual summit that gathers chief executives from oil and gas companies and later charged with a public order offense. She is acquitted on February 2, 2024.