Teen climate activist sails into Big Apple

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has sailed into New York Harbour in a zero-carbon-emissions vessel.

Greta Thunberg is helped ashore in New York yesterday. Picture: Getty Images

Teenage climate activi­st Greta Thunberg has sailed into New York Harbour in a zero carbon emissions vessel, completing her nearly 14-day journey from ­England to take part in a UN climate summit.

The 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl, who set sail from Plymouth on August 14, was greeted by cheers, chants and singing as her silver sailboat, the Malitzia II, cruised past the Statue of Liberty through choppy waves and rain to drop anchor in Manhattan’s yacht harbour yesterday.

“All of this is very overwhelming and the ground is still shaking for me,” a bashful Thunberg, clad in a dark blue jumpsuit, told a gathering of reporters and activists who greeted her and the crew of the Malitzia II on land.

“It’s insane that a 16-year-old had to cross the Atlantic Ocean to make a stand on the climate crisis. This of course is not something I want everyone to do.”

Greta made her trans-Atlantic journey carbon-emission-free by travelling on the 18.3m yacht, which is equipped with solar panel­s and underwater turbines that produce electricity onboard, along with a large black sail carrying the message “Unite behind the science”.

The boat has no shower or toilets­, and those aboard, including Greta’s father and crew members­, ate cold canned food throughout the trip.

The boat was skippered by Boris Herrmann, 38, a ­profess­ion­al racing sailor, and his crew included­ Pierre Casiraghi, son of Monaco’s Princess Caroline.

She decided to set an example by not flying, limiting her carbon footprint — although it later emerged that two of the yacht’s crew would fly to New York in order to bring it back to Europe. Her team said that all flights ­related to Greta’s journey would be offset.

Greta, who first drew inter­national attention last year when she started missing school on Fridays­ to protest against political inaction on climate change, said she planned to take part in a demon­stration outside the UN in New York tomorrow.

But first, she said, she planned to: “Eat fresh food, not freeze-dried, not be wet and to clean myself­.” Peppered with questions from reporters about her message for US President Donald Trump, a climate change sceptic, Greta ­suggested she was not interested in butting heads with the Repub­lican.

“My message for him is just ­listen to the science, but he obvious­ly doesn’t do that. No one has been able to convince him of climate change, the urgency, why should I be able to do that?” she said. “So I’m just going to focus on spreading awareness.”

In addition to the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, she intends to attend the COP 25 clim­ate change conference in Santiago, Chile, in December, planning to make her way there without using air travel.

Greta has said that having Asperger­’s means she does not “fall for lies”. “It makes me different and being different is a gift … It also makes me see things from outside the box,” she said.

Reuters, The Times