Anyone who has so much as glanced at the news in recent years will have heard of Greta Thunberg. 2023 sees the environmental campaigner celebrate her 20th birthday, yet she already secured her place in history as one of, if not the most influential activists of the century. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times, named as Time magazine’s youngest-ever Person of the Year, and included in Forbes’ list of the 100 Most Powerful Women alive today. She has given impassioned speeches on some of the world’s biggest stages, talking bluntly to some of the world’s most powerful people about the urgent action that they need to take — and are not taking. Her indelible influence has been termed “the Greta effect”.

Thunberg first came to prominence when she went on strike from school, travelling to protest climate change outside the Swedish parliament instead. This ultimately grew into an international school-strike movement among young people, with Thunberg as its undisputed figurehead. Those in power were both inspired and intimidated by her — and she did not mince her words with any of them. Her speeches and writings have since been compiled into books, such as 2019’s No One is too Small to Make a Difference (which won her Waterstones’ Author of the Year award), and she has also helped to compile major books on climate change such as 2022’s The Climate Book. She has a social media outreach that few can match, including the better part of 6 million Twitter followers. Inspiring doesn’t begin to cover it.