Section:GDN 1N PaGe:4 Edition Date:190730 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/7/2019 21:03 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Tuesday 30 July 2019
(^4) News
Greta Thunberg to sail across
Atlantic for climate summits
Jon Henley
Europe correspondent
Greta Thunberg is to sail across the
Atlantic in a racing yacht next month
to attend UN climate summits in the
US and Chile as part of a sabbatical year
the 16-year-old Swedish climate activ-
ist will spend in the US.
“Good news! I’ll be joining the UN
Climate Action Summit in New York,
COP25 in Santiago ... I’ve been off ered
a ride on the 60ft-racing boat Malizia
II. We’ll be sailing across the Atlan-
tic Ocean from the UK to NYC in mid
August,” Greta tweeted. The journey
will take two weeks.
The campaigner, whose solo pro-
test last year sparked the Fridays for
Future global school climate strike
movement, said in June she would be
taking a year off school to attend the
summits, on 23 September in New York
and 2-13 December in Santiago, which
she described as “pretty much where
our future will be decided”.
But she said at the time she did not
yet know how she was going to get
there. “It’s on the other side of the
Atlantic Ocean,” she said. “And there
are no trains going there. And since
I don’t fl y, because of the enormous
climate impact of aviation, it’s going
to be a challenge.”
The 18-metre (60ft) yacht is a
high-speed planing monohull built
for the 2016-17 single-handed, non-
stop round-the-world Vendée Globe
race. It is owned by German property
developer, Gerhard Senft, is based in
Brittany and sponsored by the Yacht
Club de Monaco. The club said on its
Facebook page it was “honoured to be
able to sail Greta Thunberg emission-
free over the Atlantic”.
The yacht is fi tted with solar panels
and underwater turbines to generate
zero-carbon electricity. Greta will be
accompanied on the voyage by Malizia
II’s skipper Boris Herrmann , her father
Svante, Pierre Casiraghi, the grandson
of Monaco’s late Prince Rainier III and
the actor Grace Kelly, and a fi lm-maker.
Greta told the Associated Press
before the announcement that she had
not wanted to travel to the US by cruise
ship because of their notoriously high
emissions, while the Atlantic could be
dangerous for sailing boats in August
because of the high risk of hurricanes.
“Taking a boat to North America is
basically impossible,” she said. “I have
had countless people helping me, try-
ing to contact diff erent boats.”
After New York, where Greta will
take part in several meetings and pro-
tests, she aims to travel by train and bus
to the annual UN climate conference
▲ The Malizia II racing yacht, above,
generates zero-carbon electricity
PHOTOGRAPH: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/ GETTY IMAGES
in Chile with stops in Canada, Mexico
and other countries.
The activist, the daughter of an
actor and an opera singer, has spoken
to policymakers at last year’s UN cli-
mate conference in Poland, to business
leaders at the World Economic Forum
in Davos, and politicians including the
French and British parliaments. She
has also met Pope Francis.
Greta, who has encountered fi erce
criticism from climate deniers and
some politicians, told AP she was not
sure how her message would go down
in the US, where Donald Trump leads
broad opposition to the radical meas-
ures scientists say are required to limit
global warming.
She said meeting the US president
would probably be “just a waste of
time”, adding: “I have nothing to say
to him. He obviously doesn’t listen to
the science and the scientists. So why
should I, a child with no proper educa-
tion, be able to convince him?”
Meanwhile, Greta will feature on
the cover of the September issue of
British Vogue as one of 15 “trailblaz-
ing changemakers” chosen by guest
editor Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16,
with her father, Svante, centre, and
Malizia II skipper, Boris Herrmann
PHOTOGRAPH: EPA/BERTE LORENZEN
Ethiopia tree initiative
‘350m planted in one day’
About 350m trees have been planted
in a single day in Ethiopia, according
to a government minister.
The planting is part of a national
“green legacy ” initiative to grow 4bn
trees by urging every citizen to plant
at least 40 seedlings. Public offi ces
were reportedly shut down to allow
civil servants to take part.
The project aims to tackle the
eff ects of deforestation and climate
change in the drought-prone
country. According to the UN,
Ethiopia’s forest coverage was just
4% in the 2000s, down from 35% a
century earlier.
Ethiopia’s minister of innovation
and technology, Dr Getahun
Mekuria , tweeted estimates of the
number of trees planted throughout
the day. Early yesterday evening, he
put the number at 353m. It smashed
the previous record of 50m trees
planted in a day, set in India in 2016.
Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis, head of the
wood science and technology centre
at Edinburgh Napier University,
said: “Trees not only help mitigate
climate change by absorbing carbon
dioxide , they have huge benefi ts in
combating desertifi cation and land
degradation, particularly in arid
countries. They also provide food,
shelter, fuel, medicine, materials
and protection of the water supply.
“This truly impressive feat is not
just the simple planting of trees,
but part of a huge and complicated
challenge to take account of the
short- and long-term needs of both
the trees and the people.
“The forester’s mantra ‘the
right tree in the right place’
increasingly needs to consider the
eff ects of climate change, as well
as the ecological, social, cultural
and economic dimensions.”
Anna Ploszajski
Met Offi ce
confi rms
record high
of 38.7C
was set in
Cambridge
to be taken to avoid further increases.
“Year after year we are seeing more and
more extreme events, not only in the
UK but worldwide. Last week tempera-
ture records were not just broken, they
were smashed by 1C or more, which is
unprecedented,” she said.
“We need to act now to urgently and
decisively bring greenhouse emissions
to zero. We must halve emissions in
10 years and reach net zero in 30. If
we don’t, we can expect global tem-
peratures to be 3.7C warmer by 2100
and still rising.”
Countries across central and
western Europe were gripped by
exceptionally high temperatures
last week, with Belgium, Germany
and the Netherlands also break-
ing national records. Scientists have
said July is on track to be the hottest
month ever recorded on Earth, and
2019 is expected to be the second hot-
test year. The hottest was 2016, which
was boosted by an El Niño weather sys-
tem. Nine of the 10 hottest years ever
recorded have occurred since 2000.
Although the recent heatwave
cannot unequivocally be attributed
to global heating, scientists found it
made another European heatwave,
in June, at least five times more
likely , and made the lengthy hot spell
experienced by the UK last year at least
30 times more likely.
Mark McCarthy , from the Met
Offi ce , said: “Historically UK summer
heatwaves would typically tend to
peak in the low 30s celsius, with
extreme events reaching the mid-
30s. Climate change has increased
the likelihood and severity of heat-
wave episodes across Europe, which
will have also increased the risks of
a 40 C temperature event in the UK.”
Last week’s heatwave was caused
help explain the increase in extended
weather spells both hot and cold.
Bob Ward , the director of policy at
the Grantham Research Institute on
Climate Change, warned that we can
expect new records to be set regularly.
“It is inevitable that we will eventually
see a temperature of more than 40C in
the UK,” he said.
More extreme weather is expected
to hit the UK this week, with thunder-
storms expected today and tomorrow.
Over the weekend heavy down-
pours left parts of the north-west
fl ooded, including Greater Manchester
where two weeks’ worth of rain fell in
24 hours.
Last night eight flood alerts
remained in place across parts of
the West Midlands and north-west
England.
▲ Cambridge sweltered on the UK’s
hottest ever day last Thursday, as
similar records fell across Europe
PHOTOGRAPH: JULIAN EALES/ALAMY
Continued from page 1
by hot air from north Africa being
pulled up from continental Europe
because of high pressure to the east
of the UK and low pressure to the west.
Peter Stott , from the Met Offi ce,
said: “Although the average rise of
global temperature is around 1C com-
pared with pre-industrial times, we
mustn’t forget that the rise isn’t even
across the globe as some regions have
warmed more than others.
“Temperatures in parts of north
Africa, for example, have risen by
around 2C. This can have a marked
eff ect on UK weather because when
the weather patterns like we saw last
week bring air from this region to our
shores it can bring a stronger signal of
climate change with it too. ”
Many scientists believe the jet
stream is weakening, which could
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