COUNTRY OF BIRTH

Sweden

INDUSTRY

Environmental Activist

TOP ACHIEVEMENTS

Greta Thunberg has inspired thousands of students and people around the world to demand better climate change policies from their governments. In 2019, she spoke at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York and was named Time's Person of the Year.

EARLY LIFE

Greta learned about climate change when she was eight years old, and the issue struck her so deeply that she began urging her parents to reduce their carbon emissions. She even convinced her mother, an international opera singer, to stop flying on planes. In 2019 she took a sabbatical year so that she could travel the world and speak about the importance of climate control.

EARLY CAREER

At the age of 15, Greta wrote an essay on climate change that won a local newspaper’s competition. A few months later, she started skipping school on Fridays to protest in front of the Swedish parliament building so that Swedish leaders would meet their targeted carbon emissions. She called these protests “School Strike for Climate” and urged students across the world to do the same. By 2018, 20,000 students were, in fact, following in her footsteps.

ACHIEVEMENTS

In addition to spurring environmental activism around the world, Greta spoke at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York City in September 2019. Since she refuses to fly, she sailed. The journey took two weeks. There she made her famous speech, where she exclaimed, “How dare you!” several times to an applauding crowd. Today, Greta continues to speak at environmental conferences and calls on world leaders to take immediate action.

RECOGNITION

Greta has earned many awards and accolades, including:

• Time Person of the Year 2019
• Forbes’ list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women 2019
• Time’s 25 Most Influential Teens 2018
• Swedish Woman of the Year 2019
• Nobel Peace Prize nominations in 2019 and 2020

ADDITIONAL FACTS

The “Greta effect” is a term coined by The Guardian to describe the influence Greta is having on the world In addition to Asperger, Greta has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and selective mutism. She views all her differences as gifts and believes it is these differences that allow her to think outside the box.