Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg returns to school after year of protest

Pandemic lockdowns have largely stopped Ms Thunberg from being able to make the case for action in person

Climate activist Greta Thunberg in Berlin last week to meet German leader Angela Merkel. Bloomberg

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is returning to school after a gap year in which she rose to become the voice of a youth protest movement that took some of the world’s most powerful leaders to task on the environment.

Ms Thunberg, 17, posed with a backpack and bicycle in a picture posted to Twitter saying she was looking forward to being back in school.

“My gap year from school is over, and it feels so great to finally be back in school again!”

A wave of youth-led protests swept the globe after Ms Thunberg went on strike outside parliament in her home country of Sweden in 2018.

Ms Thunberg travelled the world – often by the most environmentally friendly means possible – to lead protests calling on politicians to take action on rising global temperatures and live up to the agreements enshrined in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Her impassioned pleas to those in power, including speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos and the COP25 climate summit in Madrid, cemented her position as the figurehead of the protest movement.

Ms Thunberg met former US president Barack Obama but did not secure a meeting with Donald Trump, who has pulled his country - one of the world’s biggest polluters - out of the Paris agreement.

As coronavirus swept the planet, many countries introduced lockdown orders and banned international travel.

Sweden’s coronavirus strategy was more relaxed than elsewhere in Europe, but international restrictions have largely stopped Ms Thunberg from being able to make the case for action in person.

Last week, however, she met German Chancellor Angel Merkel to demand tougher action to fight climate change.

During the meeting, protesters outside the government buildings chanted: “We are here, we are loud, because our future’s being stolen.”

Ms Thunberg called on the German leader to step out of her "comfort zone" and speed up action to fight the climate emergency.