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Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, will cross the Atlantic Ocean in mid-August on an open-cockpit racing yacht to attend a United Nations summit meeting on global warming.
“Good news! I’ll be joining the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York,” Ms. Thunberg said Monday on Twitter. “I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II.”
The trip to New York is expected to take two weeks. Ms. Thunberg, who is taking the year off from school to campaign against climate change, also plans to attend the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change talks, to be held in December in Santiago, Chile.
She has called the two conferences “pretty much where our future will be decided” because nations will be pushed to deepen their plans to reduce emissions of the planet-warming gasses that come from burning fossil fuels.
“We still have a window of time when things are in our own hands. But that window is closing fast. That is why I have decided to make this trip now,” Ms. Thunberg said in a statement Monday.
Ms. Thunberg does not fly because of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with air travel. She had been seeking an alternate means of traveling to New York for the summit meeting. “I have had countless people helping me, trying to contact different boats,” she told The Associated Press recently at one of her “Fridays for Future” protests outside the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm.
The boat she plans to take, Malizia II, is outfitted with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate electricity. That should make the entire trip possible without burning any fossil fuels.
Ms. Thunberg said she expected to attend a number of events along the way to the climate conferences, making stops in Canada, Mexico and South America, and “meeting with people most impacted by the climate and ecological emergency.”
“Together with many other young people across the Americas and the world, I will be there, even if the journey will be long and challenging,” she said. “We will make our voices heard. It is our future on the line, and we must at least have a say in it.”
The Malizia II, which is based in Monaco, will be captained by Boris Herrmann. Ms. Thunberg will be accompanied by a filmmaker, her father Svante and Pierre Casiraghi, the head of the Malizia II racing team who is also the grandson of Prince Rainier III of Monaco and the American actress Grace Kelly.