Greta Thunberg the 16 year old climate activist is set to sail from the Mayflower Marina in Plymouth, destined for the UN Climate Action Summit in New York.
She will be sailing on board Malizia II a high-tech IMOCA 60’ foiling monohull racing yacht.
Billed as being a zero carbon voyage because the yacht uses only electricity generated using solar-power and underwater turbines, the yacht will apparently not use her carbon gas creating engine at any time and assuming there is wind enough will make the trip berth to berth without creating a carbon foot print.
Carbon free?
Or will it?
Greta doesn’t fly because of the tremendous amount of emissions caused by air travel – emissions that are strongly amplified due to the fact that they are released high-up in the atmosphere.
Because the Swedish teenager refuses to board an air craft and typically travels by train the voyage is attracting a lot of publicity which is, of course, her prime objective.
She has therefore chosen the least carbon-intensive modes of transportation to get to the USA throughout her travels across the American contients.
But to be able to sail so fast across Oceans in such perilous conditions her yacht is going to have to be both lightweight and super strong. The foiling yacht is as any sailor will know very far from being zero carbon when it comes to her construction.
Her foil, hull must and even her sails will be definition have been created using carbon fibre which is, rather embarrassingly, made using carbon.
Freeze dried food
Malizia, crewed by the racing sailors Pierre Casiraghi and Boris Herrmann, will navigate Greta and her father Svante across the Atlantic and during the two week long voyage will eat food that has been freeze dried in a process that is very definitely not eco friendly
Greta is taking a sabbatical year from school and aims to attend a number of events during her time in North America, meeting with people most impacted by the climate and ecological emergency, climate activists, and decision-makers. She also plans to visit Canada and Mexico. Greta will then travel to the annual UN climate conference (COP25) in Santiago, Chile with plans to visit other sites in South America that are important in tackling the climate crisis.
The Malizia yacht racing team have developed the Malizia Ocean Challenge, a project to support ocean climate education and the monitoring of ocean CO2. This project is affiliated with the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, a charitable organisation that supports work on environmental and climate change issues.
Climate change activists
Clearly manipulated by climate change activists who are using her as a bill board for their cause Greta Thunberg has said: “The science is clear. We must start bending the emissions curve steeply downwards no later than 2020, if we still are to have a chance of staying below a 1, 5 degrees of global temperature rise. 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.”
She added: “During the past year, millions of young people have raised their voice to make world leaders wake up to the climate and ecological emergency. Over the next months, the events in New York and Santiago de Chile will show if they have listened. 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. We will make our voices heard. It is our future on the line, and we must at least have a say in it. The science is clear and all we children are doing is communicating and acting on that united science. And our demand is for the world to unite behind the science.”