At 15 she sat in front of parliament in protest, at 16 she became world famous - now Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has turned 17. After a busy 2019 with two Atlantic crossings, dozens of climate protests and speeches at rallies and peaks, the young Swede is likely to spend her birthday in her hometown Stockholm.
What exactly Thunberg is up to on her birthday is not yet known. Since this time it falls on a Friday, the protest day of the movement she founded, she could protest again for more climate protection in front of the Stockholm Reichstag - birthday or not.
Thunberg's "school strikes for the climate" began less than a year and a half ago. In August 2018, she crouched alone in front of the parliament to ask Sweden's politicians to do more for the climate and to meet Paris climate goals (read this commentary on the role of minors in global climate policy).
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She first gained international recognition in December 2018, a few weeks before her 16th birthday: At that time she made a well-received speech at the World Climate Conference in Katowice, Poland, in which she called on the world's leading politicians to act against the climate crisis. Almost at the same time, the first protests of "Fridays for Future" took place in Germany based on Thunberg's example.
Recently, Thunberg's father had made it known that his daughter had been "much happier" since she started fighting global warming. The adolescent, who has Asperger's syndrome, had depression before her time as a climate activist, did not speak and even temporarily refused to eat. That was the "absolute nightmare", said the 50-year-old.
"She dances around, she laughs a lot"
"You may think that Greta is no longer ordinary because she is special and very famous. But for me she is now an ordinary child - she can do all the things other people can do," he said. "She dances around, she laughs a lot, we have a lot of fun."
His daughter had drawn strength from the fact that she could induce her parents to behave in a more climate-friendly way. For example, her mother, an opera singer and former participant in the Eurovision Song Contest, swore off flying. He himself became a vegan, said Thunberg. He later accompanied his daughter on sailing trips across the Atlantic.
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"I did it all and I knew it was right. But I didn't want to save the climate, I wanted to save my child," said the father. Initially, he and his wife thought their daughter's engagement was an "obviously bad idea" because she was "exposed to all the hate on social media." But he thinks that she handles it incredibly well.
Greta Thunberg recently interviewed the legendary nature documentary David Attenborough, who has long campaigned for climate protection. The 93-year-old praised her commitment: "She has achieved things that many of us who have worked on for over 20 years have failed with," he said. "You shook the world!"
