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4 March 2020

Greta against the world: how a 17-year-old activist took on climate-change denying leaders

How an initial lone school sit-in galvanised a new global movement. 

By Martin Fletcher

For the World Economic Forum in Davos in January Donald Trump and his huge entourage flew from Washington, DC to Zurich in both his official Boeing 747s, then completed the final leg in a fleet of seven helicopters. He stayed in the Inter-Continental Hotel’s presidential suite (normal charge: £2,670 per night). He was cocooned by security agents. His speech was crafted by professional speechwriters.

Greta Thunberg came by train and electric car with a family friend, Erika Jangen, and met her father, Svante, there. She had no aides, no spokespeople. She wrote her two speeches herself. For security reasons she had to stay in a hotel, but wanted to stay in a flat with other young climate change activists like 19-year-old Isabelle Axelsson, a fellow Swede. “She was complaining about having to stay in a hotel,” Axelsson said. The little protection Thunberg had was provided by the Swiss police.

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