Greta Thunberg tells Trump to 'listen to the science' after arriving in New York – as it happened
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Sweden’s teenage environmental activist says she’s going to miss ‘sitting for hours and staring at the ocean, doing nothing’ after setting foot on dry land
If you want to hang with Greta Thunberg, make America Greta again, do your bit to protest inaction on the climate crisis, etc, etc, then midtown Manhattan is where you need to be this Friday.
She’s going to be taking part in a general strike outside the United Nations headquarters.
Asked just now on the dockside, after disembarking from the yacht that carried her across the Atlantic, what she was going to do for the rest of the day/week, after spending 15 days at sea, Thunberg said first she was going to have a little rest.
“I’m going to just relax first and walk around and just land, in a way,” she said.
Then she added: “This Friday I’m going to join the strike outside the UN, and then more events of course, and meeting people.”
Appropriately, the famous “knotted gun” sculpture outside the UN building is the work of Thunberg’s fellow Swede, artist CarlFredrik Reuterswaerd.
The ‘knotted gun’ sculpture outside the United Nations headquarters in New York Photograph: Michael Gottschalk/Getty Images
And with that, we close this special live blog. Greta is giving Guardian environment reporter Oliver Milman an interview right now, so do catch up with that story on the website in a few. And for all the US political news of the day, ongoing, the daily politics live blog is still....live! Do take a look, still plenty of news to come.
OMG do NOT ever try to condescend to Greta Thunberg! Listening in on a conversation she just had with some journalist or other (not the Guardian, I hasten to add, that comes later, keep an eye on the website for her interview!), dude asks her: “Don’t you just want to be a kid?”
Thunberg says: “I would love not to have to do this and just go to school, but I want to do this because I want to make a difference.
“The older generation are the ones who are causing this problem [of the climate crisis] and they should not be saying to us ‘just be a normal kid’. Because they are the ones that caused this and we are just trying to clean up after them.”
Greta Thunberg has finished talking and taking questions at a short, open-air press conference next to the dock, where her transatlantic yacht just tied up 15 days after she left Britain.
She’s arrived in America to address the United Nations general assembly next month on the issue of the climate emergency, as well as to attend other meetings, and also travel to Chile for an environmental event.
At one point, she stumbled over her words and said: “I’m sorry, my brain isn’t working correctly” after a rough crossing, during which she did not feel seasick, she said.
She appeared tired but happy and managed her usual succinct summing up of the climate crisis.
“We have to take responsibility and see the big picture,” she said.
Thunberg has now walked back to the yacht, where she said she was going to collect her belongings.
She just told a journalist: “I didn’t feel bad at all, I felt good even though it was a bit rough sometimes. I was extremely lucky. For me it was really good.”
“The best moment of the trip, it’s so hard to pick because there are so incredibly many. But...leaving and to see all the people waving and to arrive and see all the people - and just doing nothing [out at sea].”
Greta Thunberg reaches New York after two-week sailing journey across Atlantic – video
After more than two weeks at sea, Greta Thunberg is being very much herself. After admitting that she was looking forward to a wash and rest, she talked of what she’ll miss about being out in the Atlantic “sitting for hours and staring at the ocean, doing nothing, I’m going to miss that a lot. To see the beauty of it, that I’m also going to miss. Peace and quiet.”
“Everyone always asks me about Donald Trump,” Greta Thunberg just said in her press conference after arriving in New York on a yacht across the Atlantic.
“I say ‘Listen to the science’ and he obviously does not do that. If no-one has been able to convince him about the climate crisis and the urgency, why would I be able to?”
“This is a fight across borders, across continents,” Thunberg just said about her battle to persuade the world to take action quickly to reverse the climate crisis, “to save the Earth.”
She pointed out that she “shouldn’t have to cross the Atlantic to take a stand” against the climate emergency, on a yacht, but she stresses that it was a necessary journey for her.
To cheers and applause, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg disembarked moments ago from the yacht that carried her across the Atlantic and she is now getting ready to address the public.
A small platform has been prepared for her near where the boat tied up at the marina in lower Manhattan, amid light rain.
Her official arrival was later than expected mainly because the wind dropped. But she’s here now!
