Greta Thunberg (klimataktivist)

I sense that what she’s really looking forward to is spending quality time with her friends at Cop26, tearing a strip off the heads of state for failing the world’s young yet again, and chatting nonsense about moose cults and baby carrots.

I ask if she was friendly with any young people before she became an activist. “No,” she says baldly. Would you say until three years ago you didn’t have any friends? “I had friends, but I didn’t have friends my own age. I was a good friend with my teacher, and I had friends when I was younger. Then I didn’t. So it was a strange feeling to have always been the quiet person in the back that nobody really noticed, to becoming someone lots of people actually listen to.”

Hers is a remarkable story. Not just the fantastical stuff – the little girl who conquered the world. But the smaller, more personal story, the one she’d doubtless tell us doesn’t matter – the lost little girl who learned how to belong. This is the one that really moves me.

When she didn’t have friends, did she want them? “I think I did, but I didn’t have the courage to get friends,” she says. “Now, when I have got many friends, I really see the value of friendship. Apart from the climate, almost nothing else matters. In your life, fame and your career don’t matter at all when you compare them with friendship.”

Thunberg says she has met like-minded people – in every way. “In the Fridays for Future movement, so many people are like me. Many have autism, and they are very inclusive and welcoming.” She believes the reason that so many autistic people have become climate activists is because they cannot avert their gaze – they have a compulsion to tell the truth as they see it.

“I know lots of people who have been depressed, and then they have joined the climate movement or Fridays for Future and have found a purpose in life and found friendship and a community that they are welcome in.”

So the best thing that has come out of your activism has been friendship? “Yes,” she says. And now there is no mistaking her smile. “Definitely. I am very happy now.”

I sense that what she’s really looking forward to is spending quality time with her friends at Cop26, tearing a strip off the heads of state for failing the world’s young yet again, and chatting nonsense about moose cults and baby carrots.

I ask if she was friendly with any young people before she became an activist. “No,” she says baldly. Would you say until three years ago you didn’t have any friends? “I had friends, but I didn’t have friends my own age. I was a good friend with my teacher, and I had friends when I was younger. Then I didn’t. So it was a strange feeling to have always been the quiet person in the back that nobody really noticed, to becoming someone lots of people actually listen to.”

Hers is a remarkable story. Not just the fantastical stuff – the little girl who conquered the world. But the smaller, more personal story, the one she’d doubtless tell us doesn’t matter – the lost little girl who learned how to belong. This is the one that really moves me.

When she didn’t have friends, did she want them? “I think I did, but I didn’t have the courage to get friends,” she says. “Now, when I have got many friends, I really see the value of friendship. Apart from the climate, almost nothing else matters. In your life, fame and your career don’t matter at all when you compare them with friendship.”

Thunberg says she has met like-minded people – in every way. “In the Fridays for Future movement, so many people are like me. Many have autism, and they are very inclusive and welcoming.” She believes the reason that so many autistic people have become climate activists is because they cannot avert their gaze – they have a compulsion to tell the truth as they see it.

“I know lots of people who have been depressed, and then they have joined the climate movement or Fridays for Future and have found a purpose in life and found friendship and a community that they are welcome in.”

So the best thing that has come out of your activism has been friendship? “Yes,” she says. And now there is no mistaking her smile. “Definitely. I am very happy now.”