Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has arrived in New York, she announced on Twitter. She expects to come ashore this afternoon after 15-days spent crossing the Atlantic on a zero-emissions racing yacht, which she took instead of flying to avoid adding to her carbon footprint.
"We have anchored off Coney Island — clearing customs and immigration. We will come ashore at North Cove Marina earliest 14:45 tide allowing," she wrote this morning.
We have anchored off Coney Island - clearing customs and immigration. We will come ashore at North Cove Marina earliest 14:45 tide allowing. pic.twitter.com/t6yy5z2asp
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 28, 2019
North Cove Marina, where she will disembark, is on Manhattan's West Side, just blocks away from One World Trade Center.
In the wee hours of the night, she posted a picture of the Long Island coast and wrote, "Land!! The lights of Long Island and New York City ahead."
The 16-year-old activist who started the Fridays For Future school strikes against the climate crisis is in New York to attend the United Nations summit on the climate crisis and to meet with UN Secretary General António Guterres on Sept. 21, as NBC News reported. Guterres has called on world leaders to present concrete plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the upcoming summit in New York, according to CNN.
Thunberg set sail on Aug. 14 from the Uk aboard the emissions free sailboat. She was due to arrive in New York yesterday, but rough waters near Nova Scotia delayed her and the sailing crew.
She has posted regular updates about the journey to her Twitter feed so her 1.1 million followers could keep tabs on her. Two days ago, day 13 of the journey, she shared a video of the choppy seas outside Nova Scotia that delayed her. The pictures and videos she shared on Twitter from Day 11 through Day 13 of her journey show stomach-churning bumpy conditions, but the smiling crew and their thumbs-up allayed any fears about the safety of her voyage.
Thunberg also shared the technology that makes her journey carbon-neutral.
"Malizia 2 is fitted with solar panels and hydro generators making it one of the very few ships in the world allowing trips like this to be emission free," she posted last week.
The Swedish teenager has become the figurehead of a rising movement of youth activists concerned about the climate crisis after her weekly protests inspired student strikes in more than 100 cities worldwide, as CNN reported.
Her insistence that the climate crisis should be on the top of every government's agenda has inspired youth activists to dedicate the week of the UN summit on the climate crisis to climate strikes. In Washington, DC, protestors aim to grind the city to halt to focus attention on worsening storms, floods, droughts and wildfires, and how poor people are uniquely vulnerable, as The Guardian reported.
"The level of frustration with the inaction of political leaders and corporations on the climate crisis is just really boiling over," said Patrick Young, a 35-year-old who works with the group Rising Tide, to The Guardian.
The Malizia 2 will not stay in New York. Instead, it will return, by air, to Europe. As for Thunberg, she is not yet sure how she will get back to Europe after the UN summit in September.
Greta Thunberg Awarded Normandy's First 'Freedom Prize' https://t.co/6guyfPovo2
— John R. Platt (@johnrplatt) July 23, 2019