Maria Serra: "The first time I heard Greta Thunberg I thought: 'I'm not crazy, I'm not the only one'"

They say all young people want to be civil servants. Well, Maria Serra is proof to the contrary. An activist since before she was 17, she has mobilized against the climate crisis, for feminism, for Palestine, for housing. She was a spokesperson for Fridays for Future (FFF) in Spain and an ambassador for the European Climate Pact, until she decided she didn't want to represent a militarized EU and resigned. At just 23, she has been in international forums to defend ideas that many might see as radical and typical of youth, but which she defends with conviction, arguments, and a clarity that many politicians would envy.

How did your activism begin at 17?

— When I was 12 or 13, I got caught up in the Me Too movement, and in high school I was a deeply committed feminist. I was a bit of a pain in the neck about it in class... [laughs] And then one thing leads to another, from feminism and care work to animal rights, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism. It's really quite a straight line.

How did you get your information back then?

— At home we watched the TN And 3/24, because my mother worked there. I don't read newspapers, but I do read a lot of books. But mostly on social media. Just as social media revitalizes the right, it also does so for the left. Many women of my generation are proof of that. Now the algorithm has changed a lot, yes, but the global atmosphere was also very different.

In 2019, at the age of 17, you founded Fridays for Future (FFF) here.

— I'd seen the Leonardo DiCaprio documentary. I can't stand DiCaprio now, but back then it really got me going about climate change, even though the documentary was pretty tame. For the first time, I felt the gravity of the situation, and it shocked me that after that documentary, which was already three years old, nobody had done anything about it. I got stressed. And then I saw Greta Thunberg's first viral speech.

What did you think when you saw her?

— It was like, "I'm not crazy, I'm not the only one who's this stressed about it right now." That year, I came down to Barcelona from my village. I didn't know anyone, and I saw an environmental event on Twitter called Unim Forces. I went to meet people with similar interests, and it turned out that FFF was founded at that meeting. There were about 20 of us, all university students, and I was the only high school student; I was in my first year of A-levels. They appointed someone from the universities and me from the high schools as spokespeople. That same Friday, three of us went for a walk with a small sign. The press came, and a month later, we were 15,000 people. On September 27, 2019, we were 100,000. The biggest environmental protest ever held in Catalonia was ours. It hasn't happened since. In Spain, for COP25 in Madrid, we were half a million.

It seemed that the mobilization here was not as large as in other parts of Europe.

— Many people have mobilized. For me, the problem was the institutional response: FFF called for a climate emergency to be declared, and the institutions did so, they adopted our message, but they haven't done anything more. When people see that there is an institutional response, they become demobilized, but it was quite a deceptive response. Furthermore, the environmental measures taken have been largely detrimental to the working class, such as the low-emission zone, renewable energy in areas where it's not appropriate... The way these measures are being implemented, the most vulnerable populations are the ones most affected. That's why we demand climate justice.

FFF has disappeared in Spain, hasn't it?

— Yes, it sounded the alarm, and once it did, it ceased to have a reason to exist. I buried FFF, and I think it's good that it's buried. I don't think we should go back to demonstrating against the climate crisis; it's no longer the right format, and it would be a waste of effort. We're now in a very different political and social context, and we have to make an effort to build enough political momentum to change the system. The people from FFF have ended up organizing in other spaces because, in the end, we understand the climate crisis as one of the symptoms of capitalism: if we go against the system that creates it, it will also collapse.

Do you think your generation is sufficiently mobilized?

— The pandemic was traumatic for my generation. I attribute a large part of the mental health crisis among young people to COVID. And I think a big part of the reason young people aren't mobilizing like they used to is because they lack the mental health to do so. The pandemic exposed the fragility of the system, and to that we must add the fact that crises have been multiplying—precariousness, lack of housing—and there's no response. We don't see a viable future. I completely understand why they aren't mobilizing.

And do you see the shift to the right that polls show among young people?

— The polls don't point to a shift to the right, but rather to polarization. Young people who used to vote conservatively now vote for Vox and Alianza. And if you look at Sumar, PSOE, and the others, they add up to the same number. It's not that the majority of young people are right-wing, it's that those who are right-wing are very far-right, but young people are mostly absentee; they don't vote. Clearly, there isn't an option that represents their interests. I feel very sorry for young people who vote for the far right because I think their analysis is often correct: the current system isn't providing them with solutions. The institutions are currently left-wing and aren't giving them solutions, so it's normal to go to the complete opposite, which promises a different reality. The policies they would implement from the other side would be even worse, but they don't realize it. What I like to think is that even if they are right-wing, at least they are politically engaged, and that's better than not being engaged at all. They have analyzed the situation politically, even if the answer they've found isn't the right one. The diagnosis is the same, but they haven't found the right culprits. They're being sold an easy scapegoat, and they've bought it.

Immigration?

— Yes. And the thing is, my enemy is much harder to confront than theirs: capitalism in general, and the super-rich. I understand that it's much more complicated to become politically aligned with the left, because if you want to bring down our culprit, you have to organize. You have to be much more politically active than simply voting for Vox and waiting for them to do what they've promised. Because it will be very difficult for the institutions to recognize the super-rich and the system as the enemy.

But you were an ambassador for the European Union's European Climate Pact.

— Yes, since 2022 when I left FFF. I applied for it, because it's a certification that you can request and that proves you're active in the climate movement, but it's the same certification that many companies have. Some people use it to... greenwashing, others by resume and networking; I did it strategically as a way to gain access to spaces, because I believe there are very few young women in institutional and public positions. It opened many doors for me to representative roles that I otherwise wouldn't have had. But I stopped doing it when I realized I no longer wanted to represent that.

How did you decide to quit?

— I was always a more critical voice within that pact. But the moment they allocated funds to climate action and the arms race began, and the EU started financing a genocide, I no longer had any place there. The European climate pact had given me credibility, and I began to see that it was discrediting me. The moment the European Commission openly defended genocide, I told them, "I want nothing to do with you."

You also went to the UN climate summits.

— I've been to too many COPs, and it's frustrating. I'd make TV series about the COPs, because they're so surreal and absurd. I went to Madrid, Glasgow, and Egypt. Traumatic. In Egypt, I was with a campaign that negotiated with regional and autonomous governments for youth advisory councils. The current advisory group in the government, Youth for Ecological Transition, came from there.

Yes, he went to the Palau de la Generalitat a few days ago. What did he do?

— We're a non-binding advisory group, as it should be because no one elected us. We meet, we discuss, we drafted a ten-point plan, we've advocated for carbon budgets... While the group was formed by ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), and I think they listened to us more, and the intention was for us to have a voice or representation, in the current government we still don't know exactly what our role will be. At that meeting, we went to explain what we do, they told us what they do, and that's it. They're using a lot of the PSOE's (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) rhetoric about acting against the climate crisis because we're going to lose money if we don't, but without upsetting anyone and without giving up anything. You think: well, I don't know if this is it. But it's consistent with their discourse; it's nothing we didn't expect.

And now you're involved in the UB's Palestine campaign. Your activism path has followed a similar trajectory to that of Greta Thunberg.

— It makes perfect political sense. When you begin to see that climate change is linked to capitalism, which is inherently imperialist and has such clear and cruel expressions as genocide, it makes perfect sense to fight against the head of the serpent, which at that moment is Israel. The money that goes to Palestine for the genocide is money from the network that sustains the climate crisis, which needs to exploit and occupy.

How do you see your future?

— In the struggle. Right now I'm very involved in the housing movement. And mobilized at the neighborhood level in Barcelona. As a young person, you're affected by many things—the climate crisis, the housing crisis—you can't choose which of your pains hurts you. They all hurt you together.

Are you hopeful or doom-seeking?

— I'm not a catastrophist, firstly because it's paralyzing, and secondly because it's not scientifically true; many things can be done. I have hope, which is being realistic and pragmatic. The ones who predict collapse are men, and they have no one to care for; they don't believe in the care system. Those who do care for others will do everything necessary to prevent everything from falling apart. The idea that we should go to a bunker because everything will collapse and a new society will be reborn is promoted by men, usually older men, who shouldn't be caring for anyone and have never cared for anyone.

How is your eco-anxiety today?

— Labeling eco-anxiety as anxiety was a big mistake. Because psychologically, it's not anxiety, it's concern. And while it might seem like we're strange, we're not; it's a basic survival concern stemming from the knowledge that our environment, on which we depend for survival, is deteriorating. It's not a mental health problem; it's simply awareness of our surroundings.