Greta Thunberg arrived in New York after 14 days …

After 14 days of crossing the Atlantic, the young muse for the climate Greta Thunberg hit the mark on Wednesday aboard her zero-carbon sailboat. She landed in Manhattan in the evening, where she immediately gave a press conference.

Greta Thunberg lamented that US President Donald Trump refuses to “listen to science”. She also said in particular that the fires in the Amazon were “a clear sign that we must stop destroying nature”.

The 16-year-old Swede, aboard the Malizia II, had previously waved to the cameras following her progress from the outskirts of Brooklyn, where the crew completed the American immigration formalities, towards the tip south of Manhattan.

“Earth! The lights of Long Island and New York in front of us, ”she first tweeted.

A little later, around 9 a.m. local (3 p.m. Swiss), she announced that her sailboat had dropped anchor off the famous beach of Coney Island, in Brooklyn, to pass American immigration controls. She said she could dock in Manhattan around 2:45 p.m. at the earliest (8:45 p.m. Swiss), where she was scheduled to give a brief press conference.

Under a gray sky, dozens of journalists and some 300 people waited on a platform at the tip of Manhattan, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, the one that has become in one year the star of hundreds of thousands of young people.

The teenager is due to participate in the climate summit organized by the UN on September 23 and the international organization has planned to welcome her with honors: she announced that a flotilla of 17 sailboats – one for each of the 17 objectives of the sustainable development set by the UN for 2030 – would accompany his sailboat for the home stretch before arriving in Manhattan.

Greta Thunberg, the originator of a global climate movement, left Plymouth, Great Britain, on August 14, with her father, aboard a zero carbon racing sailboat, the Malizia II. A boat skippered by Pierre Casiraghi, son of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and the German Boris Herrmann.

Some 5,550 km traveled

The young face for the climate refused to take the plane because of the carbon emissions that this means of transport generates. Pierre Casiraghi provided him with a free boat to cover the 3,000 nautical miles (approximately 5,550 kilometers) separating the British coasts from the United States.

Crossing the Atlantic was not easy, as evidenced by the tweets posted by Greta Thunberg during the trip.

At the start of the 2018 school year, then in the last middle school class, Greta Thunberg decided to skip school every Friday and sit in front of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm to raise awareness among deputies of the climate emergency. Its action, quickly relayed by social networks and the media, inspired thousands of young people around the world and gave birth to the “Fridays for future” movement.

Before attending the UN summit on September 23, the young woman, who took a sabbatical year, must have a series of meetings. Its exact program has not yet been released. She also plans to travel to Canada, Mexico and Chile for another UN conference in December.

Mocked trip

However, it also has many detractors. In recent days, some have mocked his boat trip, arguing that several members of the crew of the sailboat had planned to return to Europe by plane, and that his trip would therefore also contribute to pollute the planet.

But this kind of controversy does not seem to weaken the determination of the teenager, who is preparing to bring her message for the first time to the land of Donald Trump, a notorious climate-skeptic. Before attending the UN climate summit, the girl, who took a sabbatical, is expected to have a series of meetings, although no specific program has yet been communicated.

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