Video clip from documentary film: Thunberg laughs at German Fridays for Future

Greta Thunberg laughs. When asked that the movement she founded, Fridays for Future, was currently protesting in Berlin, the activist burst into uncontrollable laughter. "Really? They're still doing that?" she asks her interviewer Hubertus Koch in a video, who is interviewing her in the kitchen of her shared apartment for his film "On Tanks into the Climate Crisis."

The short clip is making the rounds. It ends with Thunberg, still squealing and spluttering, holding her hand towards the camera and saying “Cut!” calls. Does she now realize that her reaction will probably be seen as a contempt for her old comrades-in-arms and for climate protection?

That's exactly what's happening: "If Greta Thunberg is laughing so hard that people are still taking to the streets for the climate, why exactly should Friedrich Merz fly to the climate summit in Ankara instead of celebrating his birthday at an Italian restaurant?" commented the conservative author Jan Fleischhauer on X.

Thunberg is now not only protesting against inadequate climate policy, but is also primarily pro-Palestinian and against militarization. According to filmmaker Koch, her laughter was not meant as a rejection of the climate issue. He spoke out on Instagram. The clip is “taken completely out of context”.

Immediately after this laugh, it continues with “the fact that Greta does a lot more than just go to registered demos, namely practices civil disobedience, sues states and so on.” Thunberg has “grown out of that Fridays for Future number that she did when she was 15, 16, 17, 18,” says Koch, interpreting his conversation with the activist. She found that “appealing at registered demos and hanging out at panel talks and papal audiences, and talking cleverly with Merz and Obama, hasn’t changed anything structurally because simply appealing remains ineffective.”

In other words: Thunberg doesn't laugh at Fridays for Future Germany because the movement still focuses on climate protection - but she laughs at them anyway. The German Fridays are currently back on the streets. On Friday, on the occasion of the World Climate Conference in Antalya, Turkey, Friday demonstrations will once again take place in parallel in numerous cities in Germany.

Luisa Neubauer, the best-known face of Fridays for Future in Germany, is calm. She is probably the one who is particularly meant. She is a frequent talk show guest and was - together with Thunberg - one of the few Fridays delegates who met with the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). She completed a program for young leaders at the Obama Foundation and, together with the then Pope Francis, presented his apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum, which speaks out against the denial of the climate crisis and for active climate protection.

“In my opinion, it’s not about agreeing everywhere – finding one form of protest or one form of activism that is somehow more right than the other,” Neubauer told the taz. “I wish all of us in this hardened world a little more serenity and gentleness and generosity towards one another.” In a world that is already significantly heated by the climate crisis, there is hardly any time left. “We shouldn’t spend it working through video clips.” She is currently at the World Climate Conference in Antalya - like Greta Thunberg.