Greta Thunberg Trivia
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48 free Greta Thunberg trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 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 48 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 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Greta Thunberg born in 2003?
Stockholm
Stockholm. She did not have to travel to start her protest: the Swedish parliament whose steps she sat on in 2018 stands in her home city.
Q 02How did Thunberg spend the first day of her school strike?
By herself
By herself. She had tried to bring other young people with her, but no one was interested; on the second day, she says, people started joining her.
Q 03Thunberg's strike inspired which worldwide youth movement?
Fridays for Future
Fridays for Future. Once her daily sit-in ended she went back to class four days a week and kept the fifth for the parliament steps, a routine students in hundreds of cities soon copied.
Q 04Thunberg's mother, Malena Ernman, is famous as what?
An opera singer
An opera singer, one of Sweden's most celebrated. Malena Ernman gave up her international career, and the air travel it depended on, after her daughter persuaded the family to change how it lived.
Q 05Thunberg's middle name Tintin echoes the creation of which cartoonist?
Hergé
Hergé. Her full name is Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg; the cartoonist's own name was invented too, from his initials reversed, R.G., said aloud in French.
Q 06Thunberg has described which diagnosis as her "superpower"?
Asperger syndrome
Asperger syndrome. She has called being different a gift, saying that if she had been like everyone else she would never have started the school strike.
Q 07Which three words did Thunberg hurl at world leaders at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019?
How dare you
How dare you. She said she should have been back in school on the other side of the ocean, and accused the leaders of stealing her dreams and her childhood with their empty words.
Q 08Which influencer's boast about his 33 cars drew a sarcastic reply from Thunberg that became one of Twitter's most-liked posts?
Andrew Tate
Andrew Tate. He offered to send her a list of his cars' 'enormous emissions'; her reply, inviting him to write to a mocking email address, was liked several million times.
Q 09Thunberg says the idea of a strike came from student activists responding to what in the U.S. in 2018?
School shootings
School shootings. Students in Parkland, Florida, refused to go back to class after the massacre there, and someone Thunberg knew wondered aloud what would happen if children did the same for the climate.
Q 10What did Thunberg win in May 2018, three months before her strike?
An essay contest
An essay contest. Her piece for Svenska Dagbladet asked how she could feel safe in 'the greatest crisis in human history', and after it ran a climate activist got in touch with her.
Q 11Asked to testify to the US Congress in 2019, Thunberg offered no prepared remarks and submitted what instead?
An IPCC climate report
An IPCC climate report. She told the hearing she did not want members to listen to her but to the scientists, and left the panel's 2018 warning on 1.5 degrees of warming as her testimony.
Q 12What did Thunberg's original protest sign say, in Swedish?
Skolstrejk för klimatet
Skolstrejk för klimatet, Swedish for 'school strike for climate'. Strikers around the world have since translated her hand-painted banner into dozens of languages.
Q 13Thunberg's initial strike lasted three weeks, until which event?
Q 21Thunberg led a 2019 climate march that the mayor called the largest protest in which Canadian city's history?
Montreal
Montreal. Organisers put the crowd at about half a million; the city made public transport free for the day, and the mayor presented Thunberg with its keys.
Q 22After Trump tweeted that she seemed "a very happy young girl," what did Thunberg do?
Changed her Twitter bio to match
Changed her Twitter bio to match. For a while she was 'a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future', and she repeated the trick when Vladimir Putin called her kind but poorly informed.
Q 23Which Time magazine title went to 16-year-old Thunberg in December 2019, making her its youngest ever holder?
The Swedish general election
The Swedish general election, held on 9 September 2018. Afterwards she said the result 'didn't matter', because no party was offering the politics the climate needed.
Q 14Thunberg cut ties with the company We Don't Have Time after learning what?
It used her name to raise money
It used her name to raise money. Founder Ingmar Rentzhog cited her more than eleven times in material for a share issue worth almost 10 million kronor; her father said the family had never been told.
Q 15At the January 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, Thunberg declared what?
"Our house is on fire"
"Our house is on fire" was her opening line. She told the business leaders she did not want their hope: she wanted them to panic, and to act as they would in a crisis.
Q 16Which religious leader thanked Thunberg and encouraged her to continue when they met briefly in April 2019?
Pope Francis
Pope Francis. She joined his weekly general audience in St Peter's Square during a week that also took her to the European Parliament and the Italian Senate.
Q 17In August 2019 Thunberg sailed to New York from Plymouth aboard which racing yacht?
Malizia II
Malizia II. The 60-foot yacht was built for round-the-world racing, not comfort: it had no toilet, shower or proper beds, only blue plastic buckets.
Q 18Thunberg returned to Europe in 2019 aboard La Vagabonde, a catamaran owned by a couple from which country?
Australia
Australia. Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu, sailing the world with their young son, answered her online plea for a lift across the Atlantic, and a professional British yachtswoman joined them for the crossing.
Q 19Why was COP25 moved at short notice from Santiago to Madrid in 2019?
Public unrest in Chile
Public unrest in Chile, which led its government to pull out as host. Thunberg had already reached California on her way to the summit, and had to ask online for a way back across the Atlantic.
Q 20Thunberg and 15 other young petitioners filed their 2019 climate complaint against five countries under which treaty?
Child Rights Convention
Child Rights Convention. They accused Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey of cutting too little themselves and of failing to press the world's biggest emitters to do more.
Person of the Year
Person of the Year. She was also the first holder born in the 21st century; Donald Trump called the choice 'so ridiculous' and told her to 'Chill Greta, Chill!'
Q 24Thunberg was guest editor of which BBC Radio 4 programme in late 2019?
Today
Today. Her edition brought her first conversation with Sir David Attenborough, who told her: 'You have aroused the world.'
Q 25Which 2019 honour, known as Sweden's alternative Nobel Prize, did Thunberg receive?
Right Livelihood Award
Right Livelihood Award. It earned its nickname at birth: its founder set it up in 1980 after the Nobel Foundation turned down his proposal for new prizes, one of them for the environment.
Q 26Thunberg was the first winner of which €1 million award in 2020, and gave the money away?
Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity
Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity. Her foundation pledged the whole sum to climate causes, starting with 100,000 euros for a youth-led campaign against Covid-19 in the Brazilian Amazon.
Q 27Thunberg was first nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 by deputies from which parliament?
Norway's
Norway's. Three Socialist Left deputies put her name forward, arguing that unchecked climate change 'will be the cause of wars, conflict and refugees'.
Q 28Amnesty International gave Thunberg and her movement its top honour in 2019, called what?
Ambassador of Conscience Award
Ambassador of Conscience Award. The name comes from 'From the Republic of Conscience', a poem Seamus Heaney wrote for Amnesty in 1985; earlier winners include Nelson Mandela.
Q 29Thunberg's 2019 collection of speeches is titled what?
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. Penguin rushed the eleven speeches out as a £2.99 paperback, and Waterstones named the 16-year-old its author of the year.
Q 30Thunberg's 2022 compilation of more than a hundred experts is titled what?
The Climate Book
The Climate Book. She gave its royalties to her foundation, then pulled out of an Edinburgh book festival event promoting it, accusing the festival's main sponsor of greenwashing.