Which Swedish teenager began the "Fridays for Future" school climate strikes in 2018?

The Swedish teenager who began the “Fridays for Future” school climate strikes in 2018 was Greta Thunberg.

Thunberg began protesting outside Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, on 20 August 2018. She was then in ninth grade and carried a hand-painted sign reading “Skolstrejk för klimatet,” Swedish for “School strike for climate.” She initially planned to strike every school day until Sweden’s general election in September, partly responding to heat waves and wildfires that summer.

After the election, Thunberg continued striking on Fridays and helped popularize the name Fridays for Future. The idea spread rapidly through social media and student organizing, becoming an international movement in which school students demonstrated for stronger action on climate change and compliance with the Paris Agreement.

The other options are prominent young activists, but they are associated with different causes. Emma González became known for gun-control activism in the United States, Autumn Peltier for Indigenous water advocacy, and Malala Yousafzai for girls’ education and human rights.