Asked about Australia’s recent so-called climate election, when a record number of independent and Greens candidates were elected, and the Albanese government’s new climate emissions cut of 43 per cent by 2030 (on 2005 levels), Thunberg seems unconvinced.

“Some governments are a bit less catastrophic than others, but we need to realise that we can no longer pretend that we can solve this within our current system without actually treating it as an emergency,” she says.

“Setting up some vague and distant targets and … small symbolic actions … that’s not going to save us. We need to keep pushing from every possible angle.”

Thunberg and her contributors want readers to understand that global warming is not an isolated phenomenon, but one intrinsically linked to other unfolding imbalances, such as the global loss of biodiversity. She gives the example of recent forest fires in Sweden, which were not only exacerbated by record-breaking temperatures and droughts, but also by monocultural tree plantations much less resistant to fires.

Members of the public often tell Thunberg they want to take action, and ask her for reading recommendations – this is her attempt to package the essentials together in the one place.

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“I made a promise to myself when I first got started to get a big platform that I was going to use it for as long as I can,” she says. “I’m surprised that I still have this platform, but I do. So, I’m going to use it to do several types of activism and for me, doing this book is a type of activism.”

Learning the true extent of the climate and ecological crises can be overwhelming, and Thunberg hopes this volume will mean readers have evidence-based information at their fingertips.

“We have the truth on our side, we have science on our side, we have morality on our side and no matter what people say, they still won’t change the fact that this is the reality that we are facing right now.”

And she’s right. Last week the United Nations published its new Emissions Gap report, showing government actions announced to date have the world on track to 2.8 degrees of heating. “As today’s report makes clear, we are headed for economy-destroying levels of global heating,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We need climate action on all fronts – and we need it now.”

Thunberg, who is vegan, does not fly to minimise her carbon emissions, and famously crossed the Atlantic Ocean by solar-powered yacht – twice – to attend climate talks in the US and Spain. When I ask what keeps her buoyant amidst an avalanche of gloomy news, she pauses for a moment.

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For her, there has not been any other option, she says. In an existential emergency if you are privileged, like she is, and have the opportunity to act, you have a moral obligation to do so.

“I have to do everything I can to step out of my comfort zone,” she says. “In the future, I want to be able to look back and say that I did everything I could.”

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