Greta Thunberg will cross the Atlantic again, as the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) relocates to Madrid, Spain.
She is sailing today from Hampton, Virginia, with the help of an Australian family travelling on a catamaran called La Vagabonde.
Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg testifies at a Climate Crisis Committee joint hearing … [+]
The 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, who organised the first school strike in August 2018, announced her next move with a tweet yesterday.
Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu offered her a lift on their boat last week, answering her request on Twitter.
The couple’s 11-month-old son, Lenny, together with Thunberg’s father, Svante Thunberg, and the British sailor Nikki Henderson will be on board, too. La Vagabonde, which uses solar panels and hydro-generators, will take roughly three weeks to reach Spain.
Thunberg gave up flights because of their carbon footprint, so she first sailed across the ocean in the summer with German yachtsman Boris Herrmann. The racing yacht Malizia II had also solar panels and underwater turbines to generate the power for lighting and communication.
Thunberg was planning to reach Santiago de Chile for the climate summit, when a state of emergency was declared amid civil unrest.
As the army has been deployed to the streets of the capital against protesters denouncing social inequality, the Chilean president Sebastián Piñera announced on October 30 that the country was no longer going to host the summit.
As a consequence, Madrid will host COP25 and Thunberg said she hopes to make in time for the negotiations. After the summit, she will head back home in Sweden where she will spend time with her family and her dogs.
Thunberg decided to take a sabbatical year from school and instead participate to various climate talks and events.
While in the U.S., Thunberg met with other young environmental activists and inspired them to organise more school strikes. “For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear,” Thunberg said in the famous speech she delivered at the United Nations headquarters last September. “How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.”
