Greta Thunberg’s voyage from climate activist to pro-Palestinian warrior

A foundation created to dole out the climate campaigner’s prize money, royalties and donations appears to have slowed operations as the young activist turns her attention to Gaza.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. Picture: AFP

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A foundation created to dole out climate campaigner Greta Thunberg’s prize money, royalties and donations appears to have slowed operations as the young activist turns her attention to Gaza.

The Greta Thunberg Foundation was set up by her parents in 2019 to distribute more than €2.1m ($3.7m) in earnings to promote “ecological, climatological and social sustainability”.

Chaired by Swedish forest campaigner Lina Burnelius, the foundation that once trumpeted its “transparency” had not published an annual report, updated its website or made a donation since early 2023.

After being contacted by The Weekend Australian this week about whether the foundation had ceased operating, it quietly updated its website early Friday morning with annual reports for 2023 and 2024 and details of five donations made in December 2024.

Neither the foundation nor Ms Thunberg responded to The Weekend Australian’s request for comment.

In 2018 Ms Thunberg shot to international fame and amassed a cult-like following among Gen Z as the 15-year-old schoolgirl who cut class and admonished world leaders over inaction on climate change.

She graduated from high school in 2023, but little is known about her life since she left school, aside from frequent public protests.

Swedish media has reported Ms Thunberg is studying a bachelor’s degree in Global Development at Stockholm University – where she has joined pro-Palestinian student encampments.

The copyright and earnings from her book, The Climate Book published in October 2022, belong to the foundation that was created by her father Svante Thunberg, who runs a music-production business, and mother Malena Ernman,an opera singer and a former Eurovision contestant. The foundation’s website says it “donates all such funds to support causes in line with its mission”.

New donation disclosures, published after inquiries from The Weekend Australian, show the foundation donated €50,000 ($88,658) in December to the Red Cross Lebanon and Gaza Region to “support their frontline work in responding to escalating emergencies”.

Smaller donations were made to the Climate Academy (€10,000), Friends of Landless Workers Movement (€25,000), Youth Theatre Kenya (€30,000) and Stop Ecocide International (€25,000).

No donations have been declared for 2025.

Greta Thunberg is arrested outside the InterContinental London Park Lane during a climate demonstration in 2023. Picture: AFP

The slow down of Ms Thunberg’s foundation began in 2023 the year she finished school and turned her gaze to the war in Gaza, mobilising her 14.9 million Instagram followers to the Palestinian cause.

Her first pro-Palestine Instagram post came on October 20, 2023, a fortnight after Hamas slaughtered 1200 Israelis and took 250 more hostage.

“Today we are striking in solidarity with Palestine and Gaza. The world needs to speak up and call for and (sic) immediate ceasefire, justice and freedom for Palestinians and all civilians affected,” she wrote a week before Israel launched its ground assault on Gaza.

She faced fierce criticism for failing to condemn Hamas’ October 7 terror plot but later said she was “against the horrific attacks by Hamas”.

Throughout 2024 the 22-year-old’s social media posts escalated from pro-Palestinian to anti-Israeli. Her likes and shares began to far outpace those on climate related content.

Last May, her photo protesting Israel’s involvement in the Eurovision song contest was liked 263,000 times compared to the 47,600 likes on a climate strike post a week earlier.

This week Ms Thunberg agreed to be deported from Israel after her Gaza-bound aid ship was intercepted in international waters.

A video recorded before the boat was intercepted and posted to Ms Thunberg’s Instagram account, in which she accuses Israeli forces of “kidnapping” her from the Freedom Flotilla voyage, has been liked 2.5m times on Instagram.

Greta Thunberg addresses the United Nations General Assembly in 2019. Picture: AP /Jason DeCrow

The war in Gaza has captured the attention of younger generations, thanks largely to social media and activists like Ms Thunberg.

University of Sydney Professor Peter Morgan, who spoke to The Australian last year of his distress after being intimidated by masked pro-Palestinian protesters during a lecture, said Ms Thunberg had probably been “casting around for a cause for some time” but he did not think his Gen Z students were really aware of her.

“My feeling is that the students I teach don’t read newspapers or informed online commentary and tend to respond impressionistically to issues that come up on social media through friends. They neither know much about the world generally nor understand some of these issues in detail,” he said.

“Their age group is one in which they are just growing out of home and seeing themselves as social actors, often with broad claims but little concrete experience. They will grow up like we all did.”

Professor Morgan said the most worrying aspect of the student protests in late 2024 was the refusal to discuss or listen.

“Everything was reduced to programmatic political or ideological statements and opposition was shouted down,” he said.

“A situation arose just earlier this year in which I attended a non-political discussion of Israeli identity only to be sworn at, harassed and roughed up outside by masked protesters. It was very upsetting. But they are a hard core of extremists with few students among them.”

Israel used Ms Thunberg’s deportation this week as a final humiliation, sending her home via plane despite the activist famously refusing to fly because of the airline industry’s climate impact. The breaking of her no-fly pledge – which she had maintained since 2015 – could signal a change in the campaigner’s priorities.