Climactivist Greta Thunberg Coming To The Americas On Racing Yacht

Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg is taking a year off school to pursue her campaign to curb global warming in the Americas, which she will reach by sailboat on a transatlantic voyage.

She will travel from Britain to the United States, leaving in mid-August on the Malizia II, a racing boat fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines that produce electricity on board, making the journey zero-carbon, a statement said on Monday.

The Malizia II is a 60-foot, high-speed yacht owned by a German property developer, Gerhard Senft, and commissioned to race around the world in the 2016-17 Vendée Globe event.

It is based in Brittany and sponsored by the Yacht Club de Monaco.

Once she arrives, the 16-year-old plans to join large-scale climate demonstrations, and speak at a climate action summit hosted by the U.N. chief in New York City on Sept. 23.

Thunberg’s transatlantic trip is expected to take about two weeks.
Greta’s father and a filmmaker will join her on the boat, to be captained by race skipper Boris Herrmann and Malizia team founder Pierre Casiraghi, the grandson of Monaco’s late Prince Rainier III and the actress Grace Kelly.

Casiraghi said the team was “proud to take Greta across the Atlantic in this challenging mode of transport.”

“Unfortunately today this is the only way without fossil fuel emissions. Hopefully, this will change in the near future,” the Monaco prince added in a statement.

Thunberg will then use low-carbon transport to travel to the annual U.N. climate conference in Santiago, Chile, in December, with stop-offs at other Latin American sites that are key to tackling climate change, as well as visiting Canada and Mexico.

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