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50 free Greta Thunberg trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Greta Thunberg was 15 when she skipped school on 20 August 2018 and sat outside the Swedish parliament with a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet. Within a year millions of students were striking on Fridays, she had sailed the Atlantic in a racing yacht rather than fly, told the UN "How dare you," and become the youngest Time Person of the Year ever. Since then she has been arrested, fined, deported and had a beetle, a snail, a spider and a frog named after her. This Greta Thunberg trivia quiz runs 50 questions across her life and activism: her opera-singer mother and actor father, the Tintin middle name, Asperger's as a "superpower," the Svenska Dagbladet essay, Bo Thorén and Fossil Free Dalsland, the three-week Riksdag strike, We Don't Have Time, COP24 and Davos, Malizia II and La Vagabonde, the UNICEF complaint, Montreal, Trump and Putin's tweets, the Right Livelihood and Gulbenkian prizes, the Nobel nominations, The Climate Book, Lützerath and Malmö, the Gaza flotillas, the Venice canal, and the species that bear her name. Easy questions come first; the last third is for people who remember Nelloptodes gretae. Every answer is verified against Wikipedia's biography of Thunberg, with the supporting sentence quoted under each question. Fans of this quiz should also try our climate change and Sweden quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Greta Thunberg born in 2003?
Stockholm
She began her solo school strike outside the parliament there the summer she turned 15.
Q 02How old was Thunberg when she began her school strike in 2018?
15
She had just started ninth grade and stayed out for three weeks.
Q 03Thunberg's strike inspired which worldwide youth movement?
Fridays for Future
After the September 2018 election she kept striking, but only on Fridays.
Q 04Thunberg's mother, Malena Ernman, is famous as what?
An opera singer
Grounding herself for Greta's sake meant abandoning her international career.
Q 05Thunberg's middle name Tintin echoes the creation of which cartoonist?
Hergé
The Week noted that with an actor father and singer mother, an unusual name was no surprise.
Q 06Thunberg has described which diagnosis as her "superpower"?
Asperger syndrome
Her mother made the diagnosis public in 2015 to help families in similar situations.
Q 07Thunberg says she first heard about climate change at what age?
Eight
By eleven she had become so depressed she largely stopped talking and eating.
Q 08Thunberg persuaded her family to lower its carbon footprint by becoming vegan, upcycling and giving up what?
Flying
When graphs and data failed she warned them they were stealing her future.
Q 09Thunberg says the idea of a strike came from student activists responding to what in the U.S. in 2018?
School shootings
The Parkland students who refused to return to school went on to organise March for Our Lives.
Q 10In May 2018 Thunberg won a climate essay competition run by which Swedish newspaper?
Svenska Dagbladet
"I want to feel safe," she wrote. "How can I feel safe when I know we are in the greatest crisis in human history?"
Q 11Which Fossil Free Dalsland activist first suggested to Thunberg that schoolchildren could strike?
Bo Thorén
She tried to recruit other young people; when no one was interested she went alone.
Q 12On what date did Thunberg begin her strike outside the Riksdag?
20 August 2018
It followed the heat waves and wildfires of the country's hottest summer in at least 262 years.
Q 13What did Thunberg's original protest sign say, in Swedish?
Skolstrejk för klimatet
It means "School strike for climate"; she sat outside parliament every day for three weeks.
Q 21Why was COP25 moved at short notice from Santiago to Madrid in 2019?
Public unrest in Chile
Thunberg, then in the Americas and refusing to fly, had to find a boat back across the Atlantic.
Q 22At a September 2019 UNICEF press conference, Thunberg and 15 other children filed a complaint against how many nations?
Five
Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey, under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Q 23In which Canadian city did Thunberg lead a September 2019 climate rally, the largest protest in its history?
Montreal
The mayor gave her the Freedom of the City and Justin Trudeau turned up to march.
Q 14Thunberg's initial strike lasted three weeks, until which event?
The Swedish general election
Her demand was that the government cut emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.
Q 15Thunberg cut ties with the company We Don't Have Time after learning what?
It used her name to raise money
Founder Ingmar Rentzhog had raised millions for a for-profit subsidiary; she says she never received a cent.
Q 16At the January 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, Thunberg declared what?
"Our house is on fire"
At COP24 a month earlier she had said world leaders were "not mature enough to tell it like it is."
Q 17Thunberg finished lower secondary school in 2019 with what grades?
14 As and three Bs
Her father said the activism cost her spare time, not schoolwork.
Q 18In August 2019 Thunberg sailed to New York from Plymouth aboard which racing yacht?
Malizia II
The 60-foot boat had solar panels and underwater turbines; the crossing took 15 days.
Q 19How many days did Thunberg's 2019 Atlantic crossing to New York take?
15
She sailed home on the catamaran La Vagabonde with an Australian couple after COP25 was moved to Madrid.
Q 20Thunberg returned to Europe in 2019 aboard La Vagabonde, a catamaran owned by a couple from which country?
Australia
Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu answered her social media plea for a ride from Virginia to Lisbon.
Q 24After Trump tweeted that she seemed "a very happy young girl," what did Thunberg do?
Changed her Twitter bio to match
She did the same when Putin called her a "kind girl and very sincere" but poorly informed.
Q 25Time magazine named Thunberg Person of the Year in which year, its youngest ever?
2019
She was also the first recipient born in the 21st century.
Q 26Thunberg was guest editor of which BBC Radio 4 programme in late 2019?
Today
She interviewed David Attenborough and Bank of England chief Mark Carney, among others.
Q 27Which 2019 honour, known as her country's alternative Nobel Prize, did Thunberg receive?
Right Livelihood Award
She was one of four winners "for inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action."
Q 28Thunberg was the first recipient of which €1 million award in 2020, and gave the money away?
Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity
Her foundation donated it to projects fighting the climate crisis and helping those worst hit.
Q 29Thunberg was first nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 by deputies from which parliament?
Norway's
Two Swedish lawmakers nominated her the following year, and she was nominated again in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Q 30Amnesty International gave Thunberg and her movement its top honour in 2019, called what?
Ambassador of Conscience Award
Previous winners include Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousafzai.