greta thunberg travel by plane

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The Environment

Julianne Geiger

Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group.

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Premium content, greta thunberg’s not-so-little carbon footprint.

If you’ve heard of the phrase “carbon footprint” chances are, you’ve heard of Greta Thunberg. The impassioned 16-year-old climate activist is now the subject of countless news articles, angry tweets, and not surprisingly, a whole host of uncharitable memes.

But does Greta really buy what she’s selling? And does her carbon footprint line up with this passion that is made clear by the static pained expression that lingers on her face?

Regardless of your personal thoughts on what Greta believes is a climate catastrophe, it’s rather plausible that Greta believes what she’s saying. But let’s look at her carbon footprint—the amount of greenhouse gases produced to support her activist lifestyle.

The three biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the United States stem from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and heat, and burning fossil fuels for transportation, according to the United states Environmental Protection Agency. Of those three, transportation is the biggest, accounting for 29 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, at least in the US.

Part of Greta’s activist lifestyle has her jet setting—or more appropriately sail setting—around the globe to a major degree. She most recently traveled to the United States, and is now about to embark on a whirlwind tour as part of her global climate strike, and won’t return to Europe for nine months. She’ll now be heading to Canada, then Mexico, and then in December Greta will head to Chile for the UN climate conference. That’s a lot of traveling.

So how does Greta get around to all her speaking engagements on behalf of the planet?

You might be surprised to learn that Greta didn’t come to the US by air. No, Greta came by boat. And not just any boat—we’re talking about a zero-emissions sailboat called the Malizia II, which took her weeks. Malizia II has solar panels and underwater turbines that generate electricity onboard. Experts say that the Malizia II offers the lowest-carbon way to cross the Atlantic. Fantastic!

That’s the picture that Greta supporters would like you to focus on. But there’s another side to this eco-friendly journey: Two crewmembers had to fly across the Atlantic to New York to bring the boat back, and two of the crewmembers that made the original voyage had to fly across the Atlantic from the US to return home. That’s four flights to keep Greta from making two. We won’t even mention the train trip Greta took to get to Plymouth, England, in order to set sail, nor will we mention the numerous freeze-dried meals, which we assume are encased in some single-use plastic product, which by our estimations, the two-man crew, Greta, her father, and some cameraman documenting the experience equated to over 200 meals. We also won’t talk about how Greta will return home, since the boat has since returned to Europe.

In a nutshell, the 5,337-kilometer flight times four people generated 2,134,800 grams of C02 by our calculations, just for the flights alone.

Ain’t that the truth. Which is why people fly instead of bumming a ride on the only zero-emissions racing yacht in the world when they want to cross the ocean. Even if that opportunity was available to everyone, the cost would be “ astronomical ” according to a University of London lecturer. While this fact should not stop the world from finding new ways to travel, perhaps the flight-shaming can be toned down a bit.

Granted, Greta’s showy sea voyage, while generating C02 through the flights of the very people who sailed her to New York, is having an effect in spurring people to abandon or at least reduce the number of miles they choose to travel by air. In the end, we suspect that the four flights generated by her trip to the US have been more than offset by shamed people who have since forgone flying. Some may still see this as an act of hypocrisy, but the resulting math still comes out ahead in favor of reduced C02 generation.

But her travels don’t stop there. Around Europe, Greta often travels around Europe by train. While in theory, rail transport is less carbon intensive than traveling by the average ICE vehicle, in reality this assumption is not so black and white. Sure, if the train is traveling anyway, getting on that train doesn’t add to the carbon footprint it generates, if we were to use the assumption of sunk carbon costs—this is true even if that train is powered by diesel. But if we’re making that argument FOR trains, we also can make it for flights. Greta would likely not want us to go down that road.

Instead, we will look at the per-person carbon cost of riding on a diesel-powered train, which is not so environmentally friendly. Of course, we don’t really know which trains Greta travels on, and Europe’s rail network is extensive and includes both electric and diesel types.

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Lucas mayrhofer on October 06 2019 said: And you forgot also buildings, which in sweden need to be overheated. The very fact that she comes from sweden tells us that she would have a very hard time surviving without oil simply because this is a super cold country and you would die very rapidly in the winter. I think anyone should go camping for a couple nights in winter in europe to realise how much we are using the stuff and how much we are addicted to it. We take all the conforts of modern life for granted but none of them really are and all of them depend on oil in some way. To solve climate change and keep the current population levels as they are now we need to reduce our CO2 emissions by a factor of 6. this means basically reduce our energy use by 6 -> meaning basically freezing in winter eating no more meat , showering less often ... etc there is no way i see this happening through a standard political system. The only way people will accept such drastic reductions is in a war context. Meaning we will have wars/ civil wars. This does not look good at all. But no politicians will tell you this. these guys are paid to tell people everything will be good, they will not be elected otherwise.
J David on December 12 2019 said: Why would you quote the CO2 in grams? That is deliberately misleading, when almost everyone else talks tonnes (metric), to see a number over 2 million is designed to shock.
Alessia Bowers on December 16 2019 said: But why does it matter if the carbon footprint is bigger than it seems if it is still less than the average person. She is obviously trying very hard to reduce her carbon footprint, but people still get mad? How do we know that yours isn’t way bigger. How about trying as hard as her before being negative
Benjamin St james on February 04 2020 said: However you look at this situation. Every country has to do the same. Every man women an child need to comply. If not. Then there is no point. No matter how much money an talking you throw at this problem. It's not going to change. We humans can not control nature. To solve it. We have to compromise and live alongside nature. People like greta have no place in all this. Were not stupid. We all know what's going on. We can see it. Greta just wants her cake and to eat it. Let's get with the programme. Get rid of 5 billion people. Put 1 billion out of work. End up with 500 million. Nature will still rule over humans. So stop moaning an live life as were meant too. Happy an without regrets.
David Barroso on April 04 2020 said: Julianne - You should be very proud of yourself. I’m so glad that you took the time to write this masterpiece and share it with the world. You decisively put Greta in her place. Thank you for taking the time to shine a light on this important issue. Next, I urge you to write a similarly thoughtful piece about my coworkers irritable bowl syndrome and the impact that his farts are having on “global warming.” He really needs to be taken down a peg.
Samantha Hooker on October 06 2021 said: @Alessia Bowers, because I do not travel the world warning others about climate change. In fact, I generally don't travel much at all. Our entire yearly heating and cooling isn't outrageous. So really, there is just the energy from using our computers and our TV. Btw, any idiot could ride both ways in a WOODEN boat. This does not require special materials made in a factory. They can eat fish and fresh produce, not pre-packaged filth. All of this is extra fossil fuel, as is hauling her sorry ass by jet, when it turns out that this solar boat isn't actually seaworthy enough on a cloudy day to make a return trip. All of this traveling she does is far more than the average person, who drives to work because they have a real job. In an entire year, I've done the math, and the typical person usually uses maybe 1/6 of the amount of gas miles driving to work in town than they do on one cross-country vacation (a trip across country adds 6000 miles). Now we visit my brother in Texas, so there is some expense, but in an average year, I do not go around chastizing the world for their carbon while I drive a car that literally takes ten hours of electricity to charge!

Travel by plane and you might get ‘flight shamed.’ This worries airlines

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Environmental crusader Greta Thunberg is starting to make some U.S. airlines nervous.

The Swedish teenager, who has been vocal about combating climate change, may have played a role in a recent 4% drop in the number of commercial passengers flying in Sweden, where the term “ flygskam ,” or flight shame, has gained popularity.

Some U.S. airline executives are now expressing concern that the same guilt could take hold in the U.S., prompting American travelers to think twice before buying an airline ticket.

Robin Hayes, chief executive of New York-based JetBlue Airways, told industry analysts during a conference call recently that it’s only a matter of time before Americans follow the lead of their Swedish counterparts to find more environmentally friendly alternatives to commercial air travel.

“This issue presents a clear and present danger, if we don’t get on top of it,” he said. “We’ve seen that in other geographies and we should not assume that those sentiments won’t come to the U.S.”

Although flight shame hasn’t caught on as strongly in the U.S. as in Europe, airline industry experts say carriers are amplifying their efforts to cut emissions to help ease the concerns of fliers, especially young travelers who are more likely to change their travel plans based on environmental issues.

“Today’s environmentally focused 22-year-old is tomorrow’s 35-year-old frequent business traveler,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with the Atmosphere Research Group. “The industry wants to make sure everyone, regardless of age, knows what they are doing.”

Your international #vacation is a whole lot worse for the planet than we thought It's time to stop flying in denial. Yes, you: your international #travel has a serious dark side: Massive ghg emissions #ActOnClimate #TravelTuesday #climatechange #climate https://t.co/KEIqxDubRP — Writer: ActOnClimate💧 (@ActOnClimate_) May 16, 2018

Emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from all commercial flights, including cargo and passenger planes, represented 2.4% of all global CO2 emissions in 2018 — a 32% increase over five years earlier, according to a study by the International Council on Clean Transportation. Flights from the U.S. represent about a quarter of the world’s passenger flight emissions, the study found.

Airline travel globally had been growing steadily by about 5% each year over the last decade, according to the International Air Transport Assn., a trade group for the world’s air carriers. But in 2019, the growth rate slowed to 4%; it was the first time traffic grew less than 5% since the global financial crisis, dragged down by declines in Sweden and Germany.

U.S. demand for airline seats has been growing by about 4% each year thanks to a strong economy and low fuel prices that result in relatively cheap airfares.

If global passenger demand continues to grow at the same pace, CO2 emissions from air travel will triple by 2050, according to an estimate by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the aviation branch of the United Nations.

Hi Greta, I’ve just booked some long haul flights for my family to enjoy some winter sun on the beach this Christmas. Level of guilt being felt: 0% pic.twitter.com/BVE3JyiNgi — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) August 14, 2019

Citigroup in October said that flight shaming is a real threat to the airline industry and that the cost of carbon offset programs — such as planting trees— could cut industry profits by 44% by 2025.

Mark Manduca, a Citi managing director, predicted that flight shaming would put “downward pressure to demand growth forecasts.” But he said that “investors believe that flight shaming will largely be a European phenomenon, with Germany, France and Sweden likely to see the largest impact.”

One reason fliers in Europe may be more willing to cut back on flying is that Europe has more transportation alternatives to commercial airlines, including high-speed rail, than the U.S., he said, adding that he believes that short-haul flights, about 600 miles, are most likely to be affected by flight shaming in Europe.

Brandon M. Graver, an aviation researcher for the International Council on Clean Transportation, said it is too early to tell if environmental concerns will begin to hurt the airline industry in the U.S.

“There are plenty of news stories of individuals who have decided to eliminate flying, but they are the exception,” he said.

Those exceptions include Bhima Sheridan, a real estate agent from Berkeley, who said he and his wife haven’t taken a commercial flight since early 2019 and plan to avoid flying throughout 2020 to help reduce environmental harm. He said he was inspired to take action by Thunberg as well as his own long-held concerns about climate change.

For spring break, he said, he plans to take his family to Seattle, but they will travel on trains instead of airplanes.

“We thought, ‘What is the biggest impact we can make immediately?’” he said. “We decided to be flight free for 2020. It’s an attempt to bend the curve. If you look at global emissions, they keep rising.”

Maro Kakoussian, who works for the nonprofit Physicians for Social Responsibility in Los Angeles, said she has gone four years without flying because of her concern for the harm airplane emissions have on the planet, opting instead to take trains or stay locally for vacations.

At work, her organization has eliminated most short-haul flights within the state, turning to online videoconferencing for meetings and retreats.

“I think once people are educated enough and realize how much of an impact one flight can have on carbon emissions, they will take fewer flights,” Kakoussian said.

I'm flying back to school soon, and I decided to pay for my carbon emissions. Please consider doing this with your next flight. I didn't really know about it before. I joined the fight to stop the climate crisis by offsetting my travel with #CoolEffect https://t.co/kwojeWrcVu — Salsa Macha (@urchanga) August 8, 2019

In response to such concerns, airlines are promoting their efforts to offset emissions by paying to plant trees or funding renewable energy projects.

The world’s airlines, including U.S. carriers, signed on to a voluntary agreement in 2016 called the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation.

Several airline executives point to the agreement as evidence that the industry takes climate change seriously, but the agreement seeks only to keep carbon emissions from growing above a 2020 baseline on international flights, not domestic flights.

And some environmentalists call carbon offsetting by airlines a short-term, stop-gap measure.

When British budget carrier EasyJet said last November that it had begun to offset all emissions across its network, Greenpeace’s chief scientist in Britain, Doug Parr, called it a “jumbo-size greenwash.”

Airlines for America, a trade group for U.S. air carriers, responded: “We are confident that when our passengers know the facts about our environmental record and all we do to connect the world, they will remain proud to fly,” spokesman Carter Yang said.

In January, JetBlue announced plans to become carbon neutral on all domestic flights beginning July 2020, and to use an alternative fuel source for flights leaving from San Francisco.

The airline said it will offset its fleet’s CO2 emissions by partnering with several carbon reduction organizations, including Carbonfund.org, which supports tree planting efforts, the preservation of forests in Brazil and the construction of renewable energy plants, among other projects. JetBlue promises the carbon-neutral efforts will not raise airfares.

“This is the cost of doing business,” JetBlue spokeswoman Tamara Young said.

Germany’s Lufthansa launched a business fare with a unique feature: The emissions of European flights are automatically offset for corporate customers.

British Airways’ parent company, IAG, promised last year to be carbon-neutral by 2050 and to start offsetting all domestic flights this year.

Delta Air Lines announced in December plans to purchase 10 million gallons per year of advanced renewable biofuels from a Colorado-based company called Gevo. The announcement came only two months after Delta made a $2-million investment in another biofuel company in Arizona for a feasibility study of a facility to produce “sustainable aviation fuel and other biofuel products” in Washington state.

American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, created and filled a new managing director position in November to oversee the company’s sustainability program. Among other efforts, American Airlines says it has added more fuel-efficient planes to the fleet, cut the weight of the planes by eliminating unnecessary items and reduced the time planes run their engines while taxiing.

“We recognize that air travel has impacts on the environment, and we’re committed to proactively minimizing those impacts in a number of ways,” American Airlines spokesman Curtis Blessing said.

Last May, United Airlines renewed a contract with Boston-based World Energy, agreeing to purchase up to 10 million gallons of aviation biofuel over the following two years. The biofuel, which United uses to power flights from Los Angeles International Airport, reduces emissions by more than 60%, according to the airline. The contract renewal with World Energy is part of a bigger effort by the airline to achieve its goal of cutting emissions by 50% by 2050 compared with its emissions in 2005.

“United is proud to be a leader among global carriers in environmental sustainability,” United spokeswoman Andrea Hiller said.

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Hugo Martín is an assistant editor on the Fast Break Desk, the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news team. He has been a journalist with the Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years, covering politics, transportation, travel, business and the outdoors. A native Californian, Martín was part of the Metro staff that won Pulitzer Prizes in 1993, 1995 and 1998. He is an avid outdoorsman, a proud father and die-hard Lakers fan.

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The No-Jet Set: They’ve Given Up Flying to Save the Planet

With airplanes producing a large amount of climate-warming emissions, a growing number of travelers are signing pledges to keep their journeys on the ground.

An illustration of two jets flying away from each other, creating an X in the sky with their contrails.

By Debra Kamin

These days, the skies don’t seem so inviting: Airfares are climbing . Passengers are fighting . Computer systems , and entire airlines , are melting down.

Any of those might be reason enough for some to stay off a plane. But for a small, yet growing, number of travelers, the problem with air travel goes way further. They are giving up flying because of its impact on the climate.

“I choose to stay grounded because it aligns with what is true,” said Dan Castrigano, 36, a former teacher who in 2020 signed a pledge not to travel by air. “The climate is breaking down.”

The last eight years on earth have been the hottest on record . Sea level rise is accelerating , and extreme weather events are happening more often than ever.

Air travel accounts for about 4 percent of human-induced global warming , and the United Nations warns that airplane emissions are set to triple by 2050 . Planes are becoming more efficient, but our appetite for air travel is outpacing the industry’s environmental gains.

One Boeing 747 carrying 416 passengers from Heathrow Airport in London to Edinburgh produces the same carbon dioxide as 336 cars traveling the same distance, according to BBC Science Focus , a peer-reviewed magazine, though such comparisons depend on a wide range of factors like fuel efficiency and even the time of day. That jumbo carbon footprint is leading many activists and scientists to issue rallying cries to fly less, or not at all.

“This is a climate emergency,” said Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory who founded No Fly Climate Sci , an online forum on the link between aviation and climate change. “When you get on a plane, not only are you responsible for emissions, but you’re also casting a vote to continue expanding that system.”

Trading wings for wheels

Mr. Castrigano, who lives in Burlington, Vt., spent more than a decade as a middle school teacher. He traveled extensively during that time, but has become increasingly concerned about the pace of climate change over the past five years.

Neither he nor his wife, Laura, has taken a flight since 2019. And in 2021, Mr. Castrigano left his classroom job to take on a new role as chief content officer at SubjecttoClimate , a nonprofit organization that provides climate-related teaching resources.

Staying on the ground doesn’t mean he stays put. He takes frequent bicycle trips around Vermont. When he travels shorter distances, he drives an all-electric Nissan Leaf. Next month, when a good friend gets married in California, he and his family will take several weeks to make their way across the country by train, a choice that, according to the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy Data Book , is 34 percent more energy-efficient per passenger than traveling by air.

“I would love to visit every place on earth,” he said. “But my mental health would be poor if I were to fly.”

In 2020, Mr. Castrigano signed a pledge at Flight Free USA to not travel on airplanes that year, and he has renewed the pledge annually. His community of fellow signatories is small — Ariella Granett, a co-founder of the site, says 365 people signed on in 2022, and in past years the number has climbed to nearly 450. Flight Free has a larger presence in Australia and Britain, and across Europe, a number of similar organizations are rallying travelers to abandon air travel.

Ms. Granett, 46, works as an architect and an interior designer in Berkeley, Calif. She has been a climate activist for decades, she said, but felt the need for more critical action during California’s increasingly ferocious and destructive recent wildfire seasons.

“Living through that brought the climate urgency deep into my gut,” Ms. Granett said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be on a plane again.”

Like most travelers committed to reducing or eliminating their air travel, she shuns the idea of carbon offsets, in which carbon credits can be purchased, often through actions like planting trees, in exchange for greenhouse gases emitted.

As climate change intensifies, critics say that rather than erasing carbon in the atmosphere, the practice preys on travelers’ guilt and offers an excuse to pollute without producing viable results. Many point to intensifying wildfires in the American West, which have burned down forests planted with carbon offset funds , as a metaphor for the inefficiency of offsets.

“I actually think it would be better for people to fly without offsets but be aware of the pollution they’re making, rather than just thinking, ‘Oh, I solved that problem,’” Ms. Granett said.

Ms. Granett was inspired to start Flight Free USA, she said, after reading a 2019 article in Vox about a group in Sweden that was committed to breaking the air-travel habit.

‘Flight shame’ goes global

There is perhaps no country on earth with more anti-flight activists than Sweden, where by 2020, 15,000 people had signed a nationwide pledge to travel without flying for at least one year. The nonprofit behind that movement, We Stay on the Ground , is currently raising funds and hopes to get 100,000 signatories in the next few years.

Many Americans are aware of Sweden’s young climate activist Greta Thunberg, who in 2019 chose to sail across the Atlantic on an emissions-free yacht to speak to the United Nations. But Swedes — who have coined a word, flygskam, to describe the shame associated with flying — point to earlier figures, including the opera singer Malena Ernman, who is Ms. Thunberg’s mother, and the journalist Jens Liljestrand , as those who started the trend.

“A lot of people think that what you do as an individual doesn’t matter much. But the thing is, what we do as individuals affects everyone around us, and changes norms,” said Maja Rosén, 41, the president of We Stay on the Ground, who gave up flying in 2008. Ms. Rosén, who lives in Sweden, now travels primarily by train.

We Stay on the Ground inspired the Flight Free movements in Britain and Australia, as well as Flight Free USA. There are other grass-roots movements, too: Stay Grounded , a global network of more than 150 organizations promoting alternatives to air travel, was founded in 2016 and has its headquarters in Austria; Byway , a British travel planning company founded during the Covid-19 lockdown, allows customers to plan flight-free itineraries across Europe.

“There are so many beautiful places all over the world. But do we want to visit them and destroy them at the same time?” said Anne Kretzschmar, 31, who lives in Cologne, Germany, and runs Stay Grounded’s Reframing Project, which focuses on combating greenwashing, a practice in which organizations portray themselves as more eco-friendly than they really are. She travels by train, bike and foot. On a recent trip between Italy and Morocco, she took a ferry. She’d like to go to more places, but says she doesn’t want to contribute to forces that are causing environmental disaster. “We can see many absurd things like people flying to see the coral reefs before they die,” she said, noting that climate change is a main culprit in the reefs’ deaths.

Airlines are making an effort to fly more sustainably , with pledges to achieve “net zero ” carbon emissions in the next three decades and move toward alternative fuels and electric power. Airlines for America, a trade association that lobbies on behalf of airlines, said in a statement that the industry was working with the U.S. government to reduce its footprint even as, the group said, “U.S. carriers transport over two million passengers and more than 65,000 tons of cargo per day while contributing just 2 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

Activists say that progress isn’t coming fast enough and are pushing for frequent fliers to at least consider small changes, which they say could add up to big differences.

“We get a lot of American customers who will fly into Europe, but then we’ll help them travel around for two weeks through various European countries using sleeper trains,” said Cat Jones, founder and chief executive at Byway. The shift, she said, allows them to “travel slowly and soak up more experiences.” Many of her clients still opt to fly across the Atlantic rather than travel by boat, she said, citing research that shows cruise ships can actually emit more carbon per passenger than jets do.

Mr. Castrigano says that if the day comes when vessels like the one used by Ms. Thunberg in her 2019 crossing are more available, he would jump aboard. “I would love to visit every place on earth and, like Greta, get on a boat and head somewhere else. But right now I’m sort of limited to this continent,” he said.

Cutting back, but not to zero

Will and Claire Stedden, both 34, who live in Madison, Wis., are taking a slightly more flexible approach. The couple are excited for their next flight, even though it won’t happen for several years. They point to guidance from Take the Jump , a website devoted to simple changes we can all make to combat climate change, citing scientific research that travelers can stay sustainable by limiting long-haul flights to once every eight years, or domestic trips to once every three.

The two have been flight-free for three years and plan to wait five more before taking a trip to Europe. For now, they chronicle their bike and train trips on Instagram , and Mr. Stedden, a data scientist, believes that he appreciates his travels more.

Mr. Castrigano, the former teacher who has vowed to forgo air travel, said, “People think of just flying anywhere we want, at the drop of a hat, as being something normal,” adding, “but if you stop thinking of it as normal, all of a sudden you start thinking in terms of places you truly want to go.”

Ms. Rosén, of We Stay on the Ground, said the shift to ground transportation had also helped her redefine travel.

“We need to think about what we really want from our vacations, and why we need to go so far away to get that,” she said. “A lot of people who take the flight-free pledge say they wouldn’t change it even if they could, because when you travel by train, the trip itself becomes part of the adventure.”

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023 .

Debra Kamin covers real estate for The Times. More about Debra Kamin

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

52 Places: Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

Mumbai: Spend 36 hours in this fast-changing Indian city by exploring ancient caves, catching a concert in a former textile mill and feasting on mangoes.

Kyoto: The Japanese city’s dry gardens offer spots for quiet contemplation in an increasingly overtouristed destination.

Iceland: The country markets itself as a destination to see the northern lights. But they can be elusive, as one writer recently found .

Texas: Canoeing the Rio Grande near Big Bend National Park can be magical. But as the river dries, it’s getting harder to find where a boat will actually float .

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Air travel is a huge contributor to climate change. A new global movement wants you to be ashamed to fly.

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It was 2007, during a trip to visit her sister in Norway’s pristine Lofoten Islands , when Maja Rosén had an unsettling thought.

As she took in the breathtaking archipelago north of the Arctic Circle that is dotted with mountains, carved with fjords, and circled by sea eagles, she remembered she was looking at one of the fastest-warming regions of the planet.

And she realized that how she got there was part of the problem.

She’d carpooled with friends to Oslo from her home in Gothenburg, Sweden. The final leg was a short boat ride to the islands. And in between was a 500-mile flight from Oslo to Bodø.

For the distance, short flights produce a larger amount of greenhouse gas emissions per passenger compared to longer routes. That fact wasn’t something that struck her on her previous jaunts, like her flights to the United Kingdom to visit friends.

But upon basking in the fragile and sublime wonders of Lofoten, Rosén began to consider how her own actions might be threatening the region. The contradiction between her admiration for the scenery and her pollution from getting there, she decided, was too much to bear.

“It felt so wrong that my flight there was contributing to destroying that place,” Rosén, now 38, said. Soon after, she drastically curbed her flying, but in 2008, she concluded it wasn’t enough. “That’s when I decided not to fly again, and I have not regretted that decision,” she said.

Rosén has only become more alarmed and more determined to reduce emissions from air travel since then. Last year, she gave up her spot in medical school to focus on convincing other people to join her.

She founded a group called We Stay on the Ground in 2018 to recruit people to pledge to give up flying for one year. But the pledge only kicks in once 100,000 people in a given country have committed to doing the same. The threshold is a way to show participants that they’re not alone.

“For most people, it’s to know that others have made this decision. That’s really the most powerful way to make people change their minds,” Rosén said. So far, more than 8,000 people around the world have made the pledge.

Her effort may now be getting a boost from another Swede, 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg . She gained recognition when she went on strike from school last year to protest her government’s inaction on climate change, sparking a series of worldwide demonstrations, most recently the September 20 strike that drew an estimated 4 million people around the world.

But even after becoming a global celebrity, Thunberg has led by example, traveling to events around Europe mainly by train . She’s currently sailing from the US to Portugal to attend the UN climate meeting in Madrid in December.

Some Swedish airports have now reported a decline in travelers , which some activists attribute to the “ Greta effect ,” a newfound awareness of humanity’s impacts on the planet and a desire to make a difference.

The Swedes have even coined a word for the shame that travelers are beginning to feel about flying: flygskam , pronounced “fleeg-skahm.”

Rosén is trying to use flygskam to her advantage. She resolved last year to swallow her squeamishness about making her friends reckon with their own travel “because I sort of got fed up with being more scared of being socially inconvenient than climate collapse,” she said.

It’s not just Sweden; environmental activists, scientists who study the climate, and ordinary people in other countries like Switzerland , the United Kingdom , Germany , and the United States are curbing their air travel, if not giving it up outright.

However, the growing global alarm about the environmental impacts of aviation comes as air travel continues to rise. A record 31.6 million passengers are expected travel on US airlines this week for the Thanksgiving holiday, CNN reported . Our global economy is tightly interwoven with aviation as it carries goods and facilitates commerce. Leisure flights are also increasing, and growing demand for services like two-day and overnight shipping has led some companies like Amazon to invest more in cargo aircraft.

All this demand is expected to soar higher, particularly as prices for flights decline and wealth grows in emerging economies.

For regular flyers, air travel is often the dominant contributor to their greenhouse gas footprints. With the window rapidly closing to limit global warming to a bearable level — scientists warn that the planet has as little as 12 years to halve global emissions to restrict warming to 1.5 degrees this century — it is more critical than ever to find a way to shrink aviation’s carbon footprint. Every bit of carbon dioxide we emit now will linger in the atmosphere and warm the planet for decades, but completely decarbonizing aircraft will likely require technologies that are decades away. Reducing the number of flights is one of the few surefire ways to curb emissions in the meantime.

But unlike many other activities that contribute to climate change, air travel serves a valuable social function. It gives remote towns a lifeline to critical fuels, food, and medicines. It helps families stay connected across continents. It opens the door to life-changing experiences.

So reducing air travel demands a difficult moral reckoning, even if we make the decision solely for ourselves. But activists like Rosén say these actions have consequences for the whole world, so we cannot afford to make them without forethought.

Flying’s growing effect on the environment

If you’re a regular flyer, odds are that your biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions each year is air travel. It likely dwarfs the footprint of all the lights in your home, your commute to work, your hobbies, and maybe even your diet.

“Euro for euro, hour for hour, flying is the quickest and cheapest way to warm the planet,” said Andrew Murphy, aviation manager at Transport & Environment, a think tank in Brussels.

That’s alarming because humanity can only emit so much more carbon dioxide to limit warming this century to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the more ambitious goal under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. An international team of researchers last year reported that meeting this target would require halving global emissions by as soon as 2030 , reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, and even getting to negative emissions thereafter.

Right now, the world is flying in the opposite direction. Global emissions reached a record high last year, and so did atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide .

Air travel is a big reason why. A one-way flight across the Atlantic from New York City to London emits one ton of carbon dioxide per passenger. There are upward of 2,500 flights over the North Atlantic every day.

And that’s just one air corridor. Around the world, aviation emits about 860 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, or about 2 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Those numbers are poised to soar. The International Civil Aviation Organization projects that emissions from air travel will grow between 300 and 700 percent by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.

Those emissions in turn stand to have a devastating impact. The planet has already warmed by 1 degree Celsius since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, which has caused rising seas and more frequent and intense heat waves. Every metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted leads to 3 square meters of Arctic sea ice loss . Aircraft also emit several other pollutants at altitude, like particulates, sulfur compounds, and nitrogen compounds, which have an additional warming effect. In some parts of the Arctic under busy air routes, these pollutants combined contribute one-fifth of the warming .

So the environmental costs of air travel are huge and growing, and the worst impacts will befall future generations. At the same time, there are very few options to limit those emissions except to not fly.

But that’s if you fly to begin with. In the United States, fewer than half of travelers in 2017 took a trip by air, according to an industry survey . Globally, less than one-fifth of the population has ever buckled in for a flight. That means a minority of frequent flyers contribute a disproportionate share of emissions. So reducing air travel is one of the most effective things individuals can do to shrink their carbon footprints.

Why flying is such a challenge for the environment

The fundamental problem behind decarbonizing air travel is the physics. To fly, you need an energy source that crams a lot of power into a small space, and right now, there is nothing as energy-dense as jet fuel , which has a specific energy of 11,890 watt-hours per kilogram.

Batteries aren’t even in the same airport. The best lithium-ion batteries top out at 265 watt-hours per kilogram , which is nowhere near enough get an airliner across the Pacific. The technology is improving, but one estimate shows that electrification of airliners will only start to make a dent in air travel emissions by midcentury.

At the same time, there is very little room left for making air travel more efficient. The current generation of jet engines is already closing in on its maximum efficiency. Fuel is also often the largest single expense for airlines, so they already face intense pressure to go farther with less.

One strategy to deal with aircraft emissions is to purchase credits or offsets. Many websites will calculate the emissions of your flight and sell you means to offset them, whether through planting trees that take up a given quantity of carbon dioxide or financing renewable energy projects to displace fossil fuels. But these offsetting programs are only as good as the accounting behind them, and for some, their effectiveness so far in limiting greenhouse gas emissions is questionable .

“The research shows that three-quarters of the offsets don’t deliver the reductions they claim to deliver,” said Anja Kollmuss, a policy analyst in Zurich who studies emissions trading.

Another option is to use a carbon-neutral fuel. Airlines are experimenting with biofuels derived from plants. Since plants recycle carbon that’s already in the atmosphere rather than introducing new carbon into the air, in theory, fuels derived from these crops have no net effect on the climate. In practice, it can be tricky to manage the energy balance of growing biofuels such that you aren’t expending more energy than you get out of them. Fuel crops also require land, and it’s not clear where all the land needed to sustain a wholesale shift of the global aviation industry will come from. Right now, biofuels are also expensive.

Yet another possibility is electrofuels . That’s where you use electricity to power a mechanism that stitches carbon dioxide from the air into longer molecules that can serve as fuels. However, it requires gobs of zero-emissions energy, and the technology is still in a gestational phase.

While there may be technology solutions for cutting the emissions for aviation in the future, there are few options available today beyond simply flying less. “We see this as individuals taking this into their own hands after governments have failed to act,” Murphy said.

Shorter flights have a disproportionately large carbon footprint

It takes a lot of energy to get a fully loaded airliner 6 miles into the air. On short flights, upward of 25 percent of the fuel used is consumed during takeoff.

Once at cruising altitude, though, the aircraft becomes much more fuel-efficient. That means longer, direct journeys have a smaller carbon footprint than shorter connecting hops. But only to a point.

For extremely long hauls, the extra fuel needed for the journey adds enough weight that the flight’s fuel efficiency is reduced, thereby increasing its carbon footprint per mile.

Depending on the aircraft and the route, there is an optimal distance for an air route that minimizes carbon dioxide emissions per passenger per mile — it follows a bathtub curve. One estimate from the Worldwatch Institute pegged the most fuel-efficient flight length at 2,600 miles, a bit longer than the distance between New York and Los Angeles.

Graphic showing pounds of Co2 emission per passenger: shorter flights are less efficient,  but longer flights have a larger carbon footprint

But short-haul flights are increasing as countries like China, India, and Brazil open new routes to accommodate a voracious demand for domestic air travel.

Flying first-class also carries a larger carbon footprint, upward of three times larger than passengers in coach — partly because first-class seats are heavier and take up more floor space than cheaper sections of the aircraft.

A worldwide movement is growing. Sweden is its current epicenter.

Sweden is a somewhat odd place to emerge as the leader in flying shame and staying on the ground: It’s not the country with the most air travel or the highest per capita emissions . But in recent years, Swedish celebrities started pushing the idea into the mainstream. In 2015, Swedish Olympic biathlon gold medalist Björn Ferry committed to stop flying. Then in the fall of 2017, 10 Swedish celebrities published an article about deciding to no longer fly.

In 2018, the Swedish government began debating a tax on flying, and more national celebrities began to weigh in against air travel; the renowned Swedish writer Jens Liljestrand published a well-read article with the memorable title “I’m fed up with showing my child a dying world.”

The potential impacts of climate change also became startlingly vivid to many Swedes last year as an oppressive heat wave baked the country and dried out its forests. That heat helped fuel wildfires, with several igniting north of the Arctic Circle .

“It’s the first time Swedish people felt the consequences of climate change themselves,” Rosén said. “[L]ast summer was so dry and things were just looking yellow, and we were lacking water.”

Then in August 2018, Thunberg began her strike outside the Swedish parliament building, an action that soon launched her message worldwide.

Birgitta Frejhagen, 76, was so inspired by Thunberg that she founded a group called “Gretas Gamlingar” (Greta’s oldies). Her goal is to encourage older people to get involved in climate activism. She is currently aiming to recruit 10,000 Swedish seniors to participate in the World Action Day for the Climate on September 27 to coincide with a global youth climate strike .

Frejhagen noted that despite the alarm about the climate, flying is hard for Swedes like her to avoid. Many have family spread out over the large, sparsely populated country. Frejhagen broke her hip earlier this year, so long train or bus journeys are a painful ordeal.

“There is a shame of flying, but sometimes you have to fly,” she said.

Rosén said there isn’t anything unique in the Swedish soul that has made so many across the country so concerned about flying. “This could have happened anywhere,” she said. “We’ve had some good coincidences that have worked together to create this discussion.”

Nonetheless, the movement to reduce flying has created a subculture in Sweden, complete with its own hashtags on social media. Beyond flygskam, there’s flygfritt (flight free), and vi stannar på marken (we stay on the ground).

Rosén said that judging by all the organizing she’s seen in other countries, she thinks Sweden won’t long hold the lead in forgoing flying. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Germans would follow us soon,” she said.

Scientists are having a hard time overlooking their own air travel emissions

Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has curbed her air travel by 75 percent.

“I really started thinking about my carbon footprint after Trump was elected,” she said. “Doing my climate science and donating to the right candidates was never going to be enough, even if you took that to scale.”

She created a spreadsheet to track her personal carbon footprint and found that flying formed the dominant share of her emissions. “By the end of 2017, 85 percent of my carbon footprint was related to flying,” she said.

Much of Cobb’s research — examining geochemical signals in coral to reconstruct historical climate variability — required her to travel to field sites in the equatorial Pacific.

While she doesn’t anticipate giving up those visits entirely, Cobb has taken on more research projects closer to home, including an experiment tracking sea level rise in Georgia. She has drastically reduced her attendance at academic conferences and this year plans to give a keynote address remotely for an event in Sydney.

I have begun replying to invitations “Due to the climate emergency, I am cutting down on air travel ...” Have been pleasantly surprised how many take up my offer of pre-recorded talk & Skype Q&A’s @GreenUCL @UCLPALS @UCLBehaveChange https://t.co/Hlxc4R6Lj3 — Susan Michie (@SusanMichie) June 29, 2019

Cobb is just one of a growing number of academics , particularly those who study the earth, who have made efforts in recent years to cut their air travel.

While she doesn’t anticipate making a dent in the 2.6 million pounds per second of greenhouse gases that all of humanity emits, Cobb said her goal is to send a signal to airlines and policymakers that there is a demand for cleaner aviation.

But she noted that her family is spread out across the country and that her husband’s family lives in Italy. She wants her children to stay close to her relatives, and that’s harder to do without visiting them. “The personal calculus is much, much harder,” she said.

She also acknowledged that it might be harder for other researchers to follow in her footsteps, particularly those just starting out. As a world-renowned climate scientist with tenure at her university, Cobb said she has the clout to turn down conference invitations or request video conferences. Younger scientists still building their careers may need in-person meetings and events to make a name for themselves. So she sees it as her responsibility to be careful with her air travel. “People like me have to be even more choosy,” she said.

Activists and diplomats who work on international climate issues are also struggling to reconcile their travel habits with their worries about warming. There is even a crowdfunding campaign for activists in Europe to sail to the United Nations climate conference in Chile later this year.

But perhaps the most difficult aspect of limiting air travel is the issue of justice. A minority of individuals, companies, and countries have contributed to the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions from flights and profited handsomely from it. Is it now fair to ask a new generation of travelers to fly less too?

Airlines and climate-concerned travelers

At least one airline is beginning to acknowledge the concern around flying. KLM CEO Pieter Elbers wrote in a letter in June that “we invite all air travellers to make responsible decisions about flying.” The letter showed no sign of the airline itself changing its ways, but the fact that KLM was even hinting at shaming its own passengers shows that climate concerns are difficult to ignore.

Cultural changes could become a big part of reshaping demand for air travel. Shifting tastes away from impressing friends with distant, Instagram-perfect destinations and more staycations could eventually yield some reductions in greenhouse gases from aircraft.

Transport & Environment’s Murphy also noted that for a long time, aviation fuels in many countries weren’t taxed, nor were their greenhouse gas emissions, so the aviation sector hasn’t faced the same pressure to decarbonize as the automotive industry. In fact, many countries directly and indirectly subsidize air travel, whether through tax breaks for aircraft manufacturers or government ownership of airlines. While this is slowly changing — France is set to introduce a new tax on airlines, for example — much more drastic policy action is needed to curb emissions from air travel.

However, targeting the consumers of goods and services rather than just their producers is a much more fraught political debate. It’s a more direct way of changing behavior and it shifts some of the costs directly to buyers, making the costs of curbing emissions much more visible, and contentious. Cutting consumption also brings up concerns about justice. Many activists argue that the heaviest burden of fighting climate change should be borne by large institutions rather than individuals. So while some airlines would prefer to embarrass their customers, climate campaigners say it’s the airlines themselves that should feel most ashamed.

Should you, dear traveler, feel ashamed to fly?

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts,” wrote Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad . “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Air travel has yielded immense benefits to humanity. Movement is the story of human civilization, and as mobility has increased, so too has prosperity . Airplanes, the fastest way to cross continents and oceans, have facilitated this. And while some countries have recently retreated from the world stage amid nationalist fervor , the ease of air travel has created a strong countercurrent of travelers looking to learn from other cultures.

Compared to other personal concessions for the sake of the environment, reducing air travel has a disproportionately high social cost. Give up meat and you eat from a different menu. Give up flying and you may never see some members of your family again.

So it’s hard to make a categorical judgment about who should fly and under what circumstances.

But if you’re weighing a plane ticket for yourself, Paul Thompson, a professor of philosophy who studies environmental ethics at Michigan State University, said there are several factors to consider.

No need to tell me about your feelings of guilt. I see no reason for you to feel guilty. You already excel at ethical thinking in many other areas of your life and relationships. Judge for yourself what the times require of you, personally and politically. Act or don't act. — flyingless (@flyingless) July 17, 2019

First, think about where you can have the most meaningful impact on climate change as an individual — and it might not be changing how you are personally getting around. If advocacy is your thing, you could push for more research and development in cleaner aviation, building high-speed rail systems, or pricing the greenhouse gas emissions of dirty fuels. “That’s the first thing that I think I would be focused on, as opposed to things that would necessarily discourage air travel,” Thompson said. Voting for leaders who make fighting climate change a priority would also help.

If you end up on a booking site, think about why you’re flying and if your flight could be replaced with a video call.

Next, consider what method of travel has the smallest impact on the world, within your budget and time constraints. If you are hoping to come up with a numerical threshold, be aware that the math can get tricky. Online carbon footprint calculators can help.

And if you do choose to fly and feel shame about it, well, it can be a good thing. “I think it’s actually appropriate to have some sense of either grieving or at least concern about the loss you experience that way,” Thompson said. Thinking carefully about the trade-offs you’re making can push you toward many actions that are more beneficial for the climate, whether that’s flying less, offsetting emissions, or advocating for more aggressive climate policies.

Nonetheless, shame is not a great feeling, and it’s hard to convince people they need more of it. But Rosén says forgoing flying is a point of pride, and she’s optimistic that the movement to stay grounded will continue to take off.

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climate change

Climate Activist Greta Thunberg, 16, Arrives in New York After Sailing Across the Atlantic

T eenage climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived in New York City on Wednesday after sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to call attention to the need for quick action to save the planet.

Thunberg, a 16-year-old from Sweden, embarked in the racing sailboat Malizia II from Plymouth in the United Kingdom two weeks ago on the trip to the U.S. to attend the United Nations Climate Action Summit, which is scheduled to take place in September at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York.

After disembarking from the vessel at a Manhattan marina, Thunberg was greeted by a crowd of supporters, including a group of fellow high school students carrying homemade signs. The students broke into chants as the sailboat slowly pulled into the marina in Lower Manhattan, including “Sea levels are rising and so are we!” and “There is no Planet B!”

Thunberg seemed a little weary from her journey, but spoke forcefully about climate change. While she doesn’t expect everyone to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a boat like she did, she said that she believes it’s time for people to come together to fight climate change.

“The climate and ecological crisis is a global crisis and the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced,” she said shortly after she stepped on shore. “And if we don’t manage to work together and to cooperate… then we will fail.”

Thunberg said that while she’s hoping to spread the word about climate change, one person isn’t the primary focus of her message––President Donald Trump.

“My message for him is just listen to the science, and he obviously doesn’t do that. As I always say to this question, if no one has been able to convince him about the climate crisis, the urgency, why should I be able to do that?” Thunberg said.

Thunberg launched her campaign for action on climate change just last August, when she sat outside of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm holding a sign inscribed with the phrase, “Skolstrejk för Klimatet” (School Strike for Climate). In the year since, she helped to organize a March 15 strike believed to have been joined by 1.6 million people in 133 countries; met with world leaders, including Pope Francis; and was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

Thunberg has drawn attention to the greenhouse gas emissions caused by air travel. In Sweden, she is credited for the spread of “flygskam”––flight shame––which reports say may have encouraged some Swedes to avoid traveling by plane.

The Malizia II is a 60-foot vessel is designed to be emission-free, and is equipped with solar panels, hydro-generators and an onboard lab for measuring CO2 levels and other information about the surface of the ocean.

The teen set sail two weeks ago with a small group, including her father, Svante Thunberg, and co-skippers Pierre Casiraghi––grandson of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco and Grace Kelly––and professional sailor Boris Herrmann, who has travelled around the world three times and made “countless” journeys across the Atlantic, according to Herrmann’s website .

As the vessel was designed for racing, it was built for speed––but not comfort. Herrmann’s website acknowledges that the boat lacks many amenities, including cooking facilities, a toilet and a shower, although “comfortable mattresses” were added for Thunberg’s voyage.

Several young people said that they had first learned about Thunberg from YouTube, but had been motivated to act because they’ve learned how climate change is impacting people around the world.

Olivia Wohlgemuth, a 16-year-old student at LaGuardia High School, tells TIME that while she’s worried about the future, protesting to raise awareness gives her hope.

“I always feel so hopeful at protests. Climate change can be so bleak and action can be an antidote to that,” Wohlgemuth said.

Several teenagers, including 15-year-old Dwight School student Alessandro Dal Bon, said that Thunberg had been the inspiration for them to get involved with climate activism.

“She’s not afraid of anyone. She’s not afraid of the politicians, she’s not afraid of the businessmen. She just wants to get her message out there. And she’s willing to do anything for that. She’s willing to cross the Atlantic Ocean for 15 days on a small boat to do that. That just shows you how determined she is,” Dal Bon says.

Thunberg thanked the sailboat’s team and said that the trip had been “surprisingly good,” noting that she hadn’t gotten seasick. She said that she would miss feeling “disconnected” from the world during the journey.

“To just sit, literally sit for hours, and just stare at the ocean not doing anything. That was great. And I’m going to miss that a lot,” Thunberg said. “And of course, to be in this wilderness, the ocean, and to see the beauty of it. “

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How eco-warrior Greta Thunberg travels

Climate change activist to sail to US on ‘zero-carbon’ racing yacht to attend key summits

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Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg has found a suitably green way to travel from the UK to the US in order to spread her message - a high-speed racing yacht.

The 16-year-old is taking a sabbatical year from school to focus on her campaigning, but had been puzzling over how to cross the Atlantic to attend two key United Nations climate summits after travelling to Britain by train in April, reports The Times . Thunberg has described the summits - on 23 September in New York and 2-13 December in Santiago, Chile - as “pretty much where our future will be decided”, adds The Guardian .

“It’s on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean,” she said in June. “And there are no trains going there. And since I don’t fly, because of the enormous climate impact of aviation, it’s going to be a challenge.”

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The Stockholm-based teenager, who inspired the Fridays for Future global school climate strike movement, told the Associated Press (AP) that she did not want to travel by cruise ship either, because of their high emissions.

“Taking a boat to North America is basically impossible,” she said. “I have had countless people helping me, trying to contact different boats.”

However, yesterday Thunberg announced on Twitter yesterday that she had accepted “a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II” and will set sail to New York City in mid August.

Based in Brittany and sponsored by the Yacht Club de Monaco, the yacht was built for the 2016-17 single-handed, round-the-world Vendee Globe race and is made with solar panels and underwater turbines, creating zero-carbon electricity.

The club said on its Facebook page that it is “honoured to be able to sail Greta Thunberg emission-free over the Atlantic”.

During the two-week journey, Thunberg will be accompanied by her father, Svante; the yacht’s skipper, Borris Hermann; a filmmaker; and Pierre Casiraghi, the grandson of Monaco’s late Prince Rainier III and US actress Grace Kelly.

After arriving in New York, where she will take part in several meetings and protests, Thunberg aims to travel by train and bus to the annual UN climate conference in the Chilean capital, with stops in Canada, Mexico and other countries.

Her father told the Financial Times in February that the family had bought an electric car and stopped flying when his daughter was 11 years old - a “rule that effectively ended Thunberg’s opera-singer mother’s international career”, notes the newspaper.

But while increasing numbers of people worldwide are following their lead in adopting greener lifestyles, Thunberg told AP that she is not sure how her message will be received in the US. Meeting with President Donald Trump, who opposes the radical measures that scientists say are required to limit global warming, would be “just a waste of time”, she added.

“I have nothing to say to him,” she continued. “He obviously doesn’t listen to the science and the scientists. So why should I, a child with no proper education, be able to convince him?”

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Greta Thunberg helps travel firms ride a wave of flight shame

Greta Thunberg’s carbon-neutral transatlantic voyages have inspired travellers and holiday firms such as VoyageVert to avoid air travel

There has been a surge of interest in transatlantic voyages as travellers try to avoid “flight shame” and emulate the climate activist Greta Thunberg’s carbon-neutral sailing trips.

Miss Thunberg, 16, arrived in Madrid yesterday for the start of the UN climate conference. She had disembarked in Lisbon after a 21-day crossing from Hampton, Virginia on a sailing yacht. The conference, known as Cop25, had been moved from Santiago, Chile, after civil unrest there.

Mobbed by the media on arrival after taking an overnight train from Lisbon, she gave a press conference at which she said: “The climate crisis is still being ignored by those in power.” In the evening she joined thousands of protesters marching through the centre of Madrid.

British travel agents have said that interest in sea crossings rose four months ago when Miss Thunberg sailed from Plymouth to New York on a carbon-neutral racing yacht to attend the UN general assembly. Kevin Griffin, managing director of the Cruise People, a UK travel agency specialising in sea journeys, said: “More and more people cite their concern for the environment when booking sea passages.”

Transatlantic cargo bookings had risen by 10 per cent on last year, he said, and “the demand for cross-Atlantic passages for Cop25 came from zero to several dozen on routes to Chile . . . we couldn’t fulfil all the demand”.

Since last year his company has offered berths on a weekly Atlantic Container Line service, which can take about 600 passengers a year in each direction. European fares are €937.50 per person each way to Canada and €1,225 each way to the US. The journeys take nine days from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and 11 days to New York.

“A cargo ship can only sail in a day as far as a plane can travel in an hour, creating a lot of hotel nights on board,” Mr Griffin said.

Miss Thunberg crossed from Chile to Portugal in a sailing yacht

However, opinion is divided on how much better for the environment it is to travel by cargo ship. Tristan Smith, an expert in low-carbon shipping at University College London, said that a passenger’s CO 2 footprint was difficult to calculate because it depended on whether emissions were allocated to the voyage’s primary purpose — freight transport — or, if not, how the emissions were shared.

“I would tend to argue that the passengers should have no or a very minimal share of the CO 2 responsibility and this would make this a low carbon way to travel,” he said.

Steve Fletcher, professor of ocean policy and economy at the University of Portsmouth, said that if it were treated as a country international shipping would have been the sixth biggest emitter of energy-related CO 2 in 2015, just above Germany. Professor Fletcher said sailing was the most obvious zero-emission form of travel, and increasingly feasible with online services matching private owners with travellers.

VoyageVert in the UK plans to create a fleet of sailing vessels to accommodate up to 200 passengers. Ross Porter, its director, said: “Since Greta sailed to the US there has been a big upsurge of interest.”

However, he acknowledged that demand far outstrips availability and that sailing has its difficulties with speed and comfort. Miss Thunberg’s journey from Plymouth to New York took 15 days and the yacht she travelled on, the Malizia II, is a specialised racer with hydrofoils that lift her out of the water and help her to reach 37 knots.

Professor Fletcher said this was “significantly faster than the typical sail time of three to four weeks, but that’s still not for anyone in a rush”.

Following Miss Thunberg’s example, 36 young activists set sail from Amsterdam on October 2 to make the 5,000 nautical mile voyage to Chile on the Regina Maris. When the summit was moved they were left stranded.

Greta Thunberg and the plot to forge a climate warrior

International edition
Australia edition
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'No sea sickness so far': Greta Thunberg update on Atlantic crossing

Climate activist is four days into a two-week journey on solar-powered yacht

Four days into its two-week Atlantic crossing, the zero-carbon yacht carrying climate activist Greta Thunberg is becalmed in the ocean after a choppy start to the trip, still 2,500 nautical miles from New York.

In an update posted to Twitter around midday on Saturday, the 16-year-old said she was eating and sleeping well and had no sea sickness so far.

Day 4. Pos 46° 20‘ N 015° 46‘ W Eating and sleeping well and no sea sickness so far. Life on Malizia II is like camping on a roller coaster! pic.twitter.com/pf1PnqYCov — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 17, 2019

Boris Herrmann, the experienced captain who is skippering the Maliza II, which is carrying a crew of four including Thunberg’s father, Svante, tweeted: “When you have no wind and you’re drifting around... Ahh the contrast to yesterday ... gives some time to slow the boat to have a wash and play some games ... which Greta keeps winning!”

On Friday the boat, which is a high-speed planing monohull built for the 2016-17 single-handed, non-stop round-the-world Vendée Globe race, had “experienced uncomfortable conditions and everyone is feeling a bit seasick but nothing too bad or unexpected”, Herrmann tweeted on Friday.

August is not the ideal time to cross the ocean as it is in the middle of the Atlantic’s hurricane season. The team’s progress is being tracked on a website .

Greta Thunberg begins zero-carbon Atlantic voyage – video

Thunberg is hoping to cross to the US in time to appear at two crucial global gatherings: the Climate Action Summit in New York on 21-23 September and the UN climate conference in Santiago in early December.

She refused to travel by plane to the US because of the environmental impact of flying. Earlier in the year Thunberg undertook a tour of European countries by train .

While mainly powered by wind, the yacht draws its electricity for lighting and communication from solar panels and underwater turbines – aiming by these means for zero-carbon status. There are no bathroom facilities on board so the crew must make do with blue plastic buckets.

Herrmann said the journey would show how it was possible to cope without fossil fuels. He said: “This can be positive and exciting. Solidarity with Greta is not limited to eco-activists.”

Greta Thunberg
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Greta Thunberg on How We Can All Be Climate Positive Travelers

By Juliet Kinsman

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg poses for a photograph during an inteview with AFP onboard the Malizia II...

All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

All products featured in this story are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg first came to the world’s attention as a teenager when she spoke up at a United Nations summit in 2019, imploring all to take the climate crisis more seriously. Now, she's created The Climate Book in collaboration with the founder of the FridaysForFuture global youth movement. The book— which is available for pre-order now —is a comprehensive compendium of essays, scientific facts, anthropologic observations, and think pieces from some of the most respected minds and writers, including Kate Raworth, Naomi Klein, Mitzi Jonelle Tan, and George Monbiot. One thing is clear: we don’t have time to waste, and we need to strive for more climate positivity whenever, however, and wherever, we roam.

As the United Nations climate conference COP27 happens in Egypt ’s Sharm el-Sheikh, sustainability editor Juliet Kinsman shares thoughts and advice from Greta Thunberg and some of the world’s leading climate-action communicators as featured in The Climate Book .

Teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg

Educate yourself

“Educating yourself about the climate crisis is one of the most powerful things we can do,” Greta told the audience of the Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre at the global launch of The Climate Book . A good start is to watch the talk Greta gave, then read this five-part tome, which breaks down the facts with emotive stories, graphs, and powerful photographs. As Margaret Atwood puts it in the book: “We have a lot of knowledge: we know what the problems are, and we know—more or less—what must be done to solve them.”

Understand the science

“The sustainability crisis is a crisis of information not getting through,” says Greta. In using her high profile and platform to promote this 400-page-plus book, she’s upping awareness in everything from melting ice shelves to economics, as well as fast fashion and the loss of species. Global warming is, of course, caused by too many human-generated emissions fueling the Greenhouse Effect, where gases are trapped in the atmosphere causing the planet to heat up to dangerous levels that sparks extreme weather, such as wildfire-inducing heatwaves, devastating droughts but also flash floods. Meanwhile, our oceans are under siege: the melting of the ice caps results in rising sea levels, and increased temperatures cause acidification which messes with all manner of marine life. Our planet’s functions are all interconnected. Concerns such as the loss of fertile soils, air pollution, and water shortages are part of a bigger picture that has implications for all eight billion of us.

Image may contain Sitting Person Adult Clothing Shoe Footwear Bag Backpack Furniture and Bench

Travel better

Consider greener modes of travel, opt for electric options, and take public transport: trains, trams, buses, and ferries. Greta urges authorities to offer low-carbon logistics free of charge and subsidize trains instead of planes, while we explore car-pooling and car-sharing options. And, of course, Greta highlights that the tourism industry makes up around eight percent of global emissions and flags that the world’s wealthiest are guilty of 50 percent of all aviation’s emissions. This is why we need to make those contrails count when we travel, and support communities in developing nations, by leaving as much in local pockets as possible.

Do away with disposability

Our addiction to plastic is killing us. Microplastics are contaminating every aspect of our environment. Plus, plastics are made using petrochemicals—we need to reuse all that we can. It’s clear a shift back to longer-lasting products that stay in circulation is key. Generations ago, this was how so many cultures rolled, yet today we don’t give a second thought to so much single-use. Help swerve the plundering of natural resources and energy used to produce all those throwaway goods, and keep extending the life span of all you use.

Image may contain Plant Planting Person Garden Outdoors Nature Tree Vegetation Hat Clothing Adult and Gardening

Support rewilding efforts

Help the restoration of forests, wetlands, savannahs, reefs , and other depleted ecosystems by choosing nature-positive activities and, in turn, help the regeneration of life on Earth, which will also draw down much of the carbon we have released into the atmosphere. “We must start working with nature instead of against it,” says George Monbiot in the book. “Rewilding enables us to begin to heal some of the great damage we have inflicted on the living world.”

Boost biodiversity

All ecosystems are interconnected, and every cog is required to keep this machine called planet Earth functioning. Us paying for trips and activities that provide revenue for wildlife conservation is critical since countless plants and animal species face extinction—and with the loss of each species, we are one step closer to destroying the web of life that sustains us all. Climate change is accelerating the loss of species, and the loss of species is accelerating climate change. Both problems must be solved at the same time to protect our way of life. Greta’s short film #ForNature released to mark Biodiversity Day 2021 was a potent reminder.

Be more conscious, considerate consumers

We need to move away from our voracious consumption of goods and things, be less individualistic and make more responsible choices to reduce negative ecological impact, emphasizes Kate Raworth, author of Donut Economics . Among the economist's tips for lower-carbon living in The Climate Book are keeping electronic products for much longer, buying less brand-new fashion, minimizing short-haul flights—in summary, possessing and using less, and sharing more.

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Shift towards a plant-based diet

We may not be able to fix everything in a click of our fingers by going vegan , Greta shrugged in her talk at the Southbank. But as Michael Clark notes in The Climate Boo k, a drop in meat and dairy production will drastically reduce emissions from farming and spare land from deforestation. The more of us eating and drinking fewer animal-origin goods the better.

Challenge greenwashing

With antennae that are finely tuned to pick up on hollow promises and hot air aimed at earning the declarant a halo they don’t deserve, Greta makes a call to call out greenwash and false sustainability claims. Her particular bugbear is the greenwashing of sustainable consumerism, challenging the brands that try and tell us we can buy and pamper our way out of this mess; we need to take a more holistic view of the causes and symptoms of the climate emergency.

Be an activist

“In order to change things, we need everyone—we need billions of activists,” says Greta. Advocate for climate change by marching, boycotting, striking, and talking loudly about social injustices and inequities and asking more questions.

Greta Thunberg at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival is available to watch for free on-demand until 30 November southbankcentre.co.uk . The Climate Book created by Greta Thunberg is published by Allen Lane ($26), featuring key climate action voices; proceeds go to her foundation to support charitable environmental organizations.

Funny Old World is Juliet Kinsman ’s new sustainability podcast which covers a lot of the topics touched on here—find it in the usual places, or subscribe via Apple . Co-hosted with Simon London, it aims to raise awareness and a deeper understanding of the causes and symptoms of the climate crisis. The series features insightful interviews with renowned experts like writer and environmentalist George Monbiot and youth activist Mitzi Tan Jonelle in Manilla, and Dyson Chee of the Hawaii Youth Climate Coalition.

This article was originally published on Condé Nast Traveller U.K

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Open access
Published: 15 May 2023

Sailing to save the planet? Media-produced narratives of Greta Thunberg’s trip to the UN Climate Summit in German print newspapers

Linda Lütkes ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9941-7954 1 ,
Leonie Tuitjer ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6178-7757 1 &
Peter Dirksmeier ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9706-004X 1

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 10 , Article number: 242 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Cultural and media studies
Environmental studies

Narratives and stories are important communication tools and as such essential subjects of social geography. This paper analyses the retelling of Greta Thunberg’s sailing trip across the Atlantic to the Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019 in leading German newspapers and magazines and how her intentions are transformed through this reporting into different narratives. The research mainly focuses on examining the influence of space and place, as geographical research has revealed that spatial determinants are crucial in risk communication and knowledge generation on climate change but have yet to be studied considering stories. The paper, therefore, extends the story-based approach from communication sciences by geographical research on the role of space and place in action-based stories. Therefore, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is used to decode the spatial environment in narratives as an active element that shapes the narrative, and the way characters can (inter)act within these settings. The paper further develops the NPF framework through a geographical lens by focusing particularly on the selection options of spaces for social interactions and affective bonds. Thus, it becomes evident how spatial contexts and environments shape the interactions between individuals and crucially influence the types of narratives that emerge.

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Introduction.

Since Greta Thunberg’s first school strike for the climate in August 2018, the global social movement ‘Fridays for Future’ has emerged in which Thunberg has been identified as a leading protagonist (Von Zabern and Tulloch, 2021 ). In Germany, some of the world’s largest and most widespread ‘Fridays for Future’ protests took place, setting climate change on the political agenda and giving climate protection a special significance in society and political discourse in recent years (Buzogány and Scherhaufer, 2022 ). Despite Germany being still one of the largest CO 2 emitters in Europe, the then-governing German conservative party still justified coal production for economic reasons. Hence, the movement’s focus here was on the demand for a fast and consistent coal phase-out to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Thunberg became a central figure in the movement in Germany and was known as the face of political resistance and climate activism (Bergmann and Ossewaarde, 2020 ).

In 2019, Thunberg attracted special attention in German media for her sailing trip across the Atlantic to the UN Climate Summit in New York. With this trip, which was described as climate-neutral, the young activist wanted to clarify her position on avoiding air travel and similar environmentally damaging behaviour and inspire people to become active in climate protection. Media and public interest in this trip were heightened by the fact that she was sailed by German star sailor and climate activist Boris Herrmann (Mkono et al., 2020 ). The analysis of the stories told about this journey in six German print newspapers is the subject of this study.

Research on climate communication has shown that media representations and especially stories can be effective tools for public understanding and risk perception of the climate emergency (Bevan et al., 2020 ). Cameron ( 2012 , p. 574) points out: “Stories express something irreducibly particular and personal, and yet they can be received as expressions of broader social and political context, and their telling can move, affect, and produce collectivities.” Therefore, it is important to consider the performativity of stories; although there is an objective reality, people assign different meanings to the world around them and construct reality with the help of stories and narratives. These social constructions of the world and resulting social relations are influenced by values, norms, and beliefs (Schlaufer et al., 2022 ). To create effective climate communication and engage the public in climate action, it is proposed to tell more action-oriented stories to stimulate social learning and generate agency (Meyer et al., 2021 ). This paper aims to connect the story-based approach of communication studies with geographic research and explores the role of place and space in stories. Previous geographic research has shown that spatial determinants are important factors in risk perception, production of knowledge about climate change, and willingness to act (Devine-Wright, 2013 ; Mahony and Hulme, 2018 ; Rudiak-Gould, 2013 ). We will extend this approach by examining the role of place and space in action-based storytelling. We are interested in how narratives are created through them, and how spaces influence and shape characters’ actions. Moreover, our paper can counteract the lack of discussion on the role of space and place in narrative studies, which has been criticised in geography scholarship (Prince, 2018 ).

For this analysis, we rely on the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), which serves as an analytical tool for decoding the beliefs, values, and content of stories by referring to typical structural elements of stories—characters, setting, plot, and moral (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017 ; Jones and McBeth, 2010 ). The systematic analysis of narrative elements in stories allows us to examine what factors initiate individual and collective action and have implications for political beliefs and agency. In particular, focusing on the element of setting in climate stories provides an opportunity to examine the influence of spatial determinants (Jones et al., 2014 ). Considering narrative structure and narrative context with the NPF distinguishes this approach from common approaches in human geography, such as discourse analysis (e.g. Foucault, 1972 ; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985 ).

Accordingly, we assume that the NPF provides a valuable approach to the geographical study of the role of place and space in climate stories. We exemplify this by analysing the four entangled aspects of character, setting, plot, and moral that shape the narrative around Thunberg’s journey, piloted by Herrmann. We emphasise the need for a geographical engagement with the setting of her journey, as spatial references can foster a sense of closeness and hence contribute to people’s engagement with climate change (Bloomfield and Manktelow, 2021 ). Special interest is given to the spatiality of the boat, which is shaped by the material limitation of space due to the narrowness of the ship and the constantly changing location far from the mainland. This creates a changed situational context and a special kind of place that can shape people’s lives and their relations to each other (Cresswell, 2004 ). This spatiality warrants a human geographic examination with questions about proximity and distance (Hasty and Peters, 2012 ), borders (Newman, 2006 ), and the very specific situational stratification in the two-week continuous interaction situation of Thunberg and Herrmann (Collins, 2000 ).

The paper proceeds as follows. First, we demonstrate the relevance of stories in climate communication and illustrate the role of space and place in risk perception and knowledge production. The NPF is a useful approach for climate communication strategies, as it allows for an analysis that shows which narrative elements can have an impact on individual or collective action and political processes. We then present our empirical material and methodology before analysing how different print media sources in Germany used the entangled elements of character, setting, plot, and moral within their reporting. A geographic sensibility within an NPF context enables us to understand how particular narratives and moral messages are formed that foreground the importance of a narrative approach to climate change communication research in geography for encouraging people to test alternatives and engage in climate action.

Changing approaches in climate change communication

Many people perceive the scientific evidence of the climate emergency as abstract, distant, and impersonal, which makes it difficult to raise interest in and concern for the issue (Gustafson et al., 2020 ; Manzo and Padfield, 2016 ). Climate scientists and policymakers often struggle to communicate the content and consequences of climate change and to mobilise people for climate action (Bevan et al., 2020 ). Therefore, a central question in climate research is how climate communication can be made more effective and which methods can encourage people to become socially and politically engaged (Morris et al., 2019 ; Stoknes, 2014 ). To find answers to these questions, geographers have explored the role of climate communication in the form of media reports, stories, maps, and images. They have investigated how attention and concern about climate change are generated (Harris, 2020 ; Meyer et al., 2021 ) and how this is influenced by spatial determinants (Devine-Wright, 2013 ; Mahony and Hulme, 2018 ; Rudiak-Gould, 2013 ). These analyses focus primarily on how communication must be designed to convince people of the existence and risks of climate change. Currently, however, there are calls for a shift in the focus of climate communication to show the relevance of action and participation in policy changes (De Wit and Haines, 2022 ). Communication through stories is seen as an essential tool to influence individual and collective behaviour and shape public discourses (Cameron, 2012 ; Meyer et al., 2021 ). Although research shows that space and place play a critical role in communicating the causes and consequences of climate change, risk perception, and personal concern (Devine-Wright, 2013 ; Mahony and Hulme, 2018 ; Rudiak-Gould, 2013 ), spatial determinants in stories promoting climate change engagement have not been widely studied. This paper uses the Narrative Policy Framework to fill this gap and analyse geographical determinants in stories about climate change. This approach can be used as an analytical tool to clarify how (political) narratives influence individual and public opinion, which beliefs, values, and moral messages are conveyed, and which significance spatial conditions have (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017 ; Jones and McBeth, 2010 ). This approach thus combines geographical studies of the role of space and place in the communication of climate knowledge with the relevance of stories noted by communication scholars.

Storytelling for climate action

Effectively addressing the challenges of climate change requires that people not only believe in climate change and understand the risks and impacts but also change their behaviour and take climate action (Meyer et al., 2021 ). The communication of scientific findings and demonstration of the impacts of climate change has led to the existence and risks of anthropogenic climate change becoming a widespread consensus, and society is increasingly concerned. Nevertheless, even among people concerned about the impacts of climate change, individual behaviour and commitment to social and political change remain low (Stoknes, 2014 ). Therefore, Morris et al. ( 2019 ) conclude that fact-based information presentations do little to motivate action and call for alternative approaches in climate communication.

Since the ‘narrative turn’, social science scholars have assumed that stories can be part of the solution (Veland et al., 2018 ) and “that stories have a fundamental role to play in our collective ability to address the complex realities of climate change” (Harris, 2020 , p. 310). Stories follow a basic narrative structure consisting of a beginning, middle, and ending. They portray diverse characters and convey a moral message (Morris et al., 2019 ). By telling personal, character-based stories, it is possible to recreate concrete and personal experiences, provide insights into the characters’ thoughts and feelings, and thereby reduce psychological distance. This experiential transportation allows a stronger imagination and emotional connection to the characters and is considered helpful for communicating with diverse audiences, including non-expert audiences (Gustafson et al., 2020 ). Stories are seen as a way to bring together abstract, disconnected phenomena and thereby construct order and a view of the world. Veland et al. ( 2018 ) note: “In this way, narratives constitute reality as we know it by making sense of observations, leading us to new inferences, and providing models for a path forward” (p. 42).

In addition, it is considered important to tell diverse stories about people who are actively engaging in climate action and contributing to transformative change. Action-based stories stimulate social learning processes and can help recipients build agency for similar situations (Meyer et al., 2021 ). Meyer et al. ( 2021 ) therefore, see a shift in the “conceptualization of climate change from ‘issue-based’ to ‘action-based’” (p. 1) stories as crucial for effective climate communication. Learning from other people’s actions and experiences (Howarth and Parsons, 2021 ) is a way to overcome the lack of agency by developing “new, concrete ways of ‘knowing’ how to act in relation to climate change” (Meyer et al., 2021 , p. 5). Furthermore, the research addresses the inclusion of celebrities in stories about climate change as their privileged voices can raise awareness, serve as role models, and trigger appropriate social action. Through celebrity activism, climate change could be perceived as less abstract and impersonal and gain media attention. Conversely, there is concern that celebrity involvement leads to a focus on the individual, obscuring politically complex issues and hindering change (Boykoff et al., 2010 ).

Communicating climate knowledge and opportunities for action through stories is not a substitute for presenting scientific facts but should be seen as a second, complementary path to contribute to understanding and motivation for action in a different way (Dahlstrom, 2014 ). Although the relevance of stories for climate change communication is already well-founded “little attention [has been paid] to spatial relations in narrative” (Prince, 2018 , p. 175).

The spatiality of climate communication

Place and space play an important role in climate communication for several reasons, such as addressing the visibility and localisation of climate change impacts (Brace and Geoghegan, 2011 ; Rudiak-Gould, 2013 ), contextualising knowledge and information (Mahony and Hulme, 2018 ), or incorporating identity, place attachment, and responsibility (Schweizer et al., 2013 ). To address the spatiality of climate communication, it is necessary to understand and distinguish between space and place. We will draw on the geographical discussion of these terms, as they are central concepts in this discipline (Cresswell, 2004 ).

Space can be understood as a more abstract concept of the physical area that can be described factually and mathematically, e.g., with the help of coordinates, sizes, and distances. Conversely, place refers to a location that acquires meaning through human interaction, social relationships, and cultural, social, and symbolic attachment. Meaningless space can therefore become a place through human action. Place as a meaningful location contains three dimensions—location, locale, and sense of place (Agnew, 2011 ). With ‘place’ a specific geographical reference is established, the place is located in space and set in relation to other places. Conversely, in the dimension ‘locale’, the place does not necessarily have to be associated with a specific location and does not always have to be spatially bound (Agnew, 2011 ). Cresswell ( 2004 ) notes: “A ship, for instance, may become a special kind of place for people who share it on a long voyage, even though its location is constantly changing. By ‘local’ Agnew means the material setting for social relations—the actual shape of place within which people conduct their lives as individuals, as men or women, as white or black, straight or gay” (p. 15). The local is thus not only an administrative unit and a physical boundary but also a place for accumulating interpersonal relationships and creating identity. At the same time, the local can also be used for representation, in which external influences and circumstances are spatially located and processed (Pfaff-Czarnecka, 2005 ). The third dimension, the ‘sense of place’, is the identification with a place that arises from subjective and emotional attachment. “In this construction, every place is particular and, thus, singular“ (Agnew, 2011 , p. 327). In climate communication, the terms ‘space’ and ‘place’ are therefore relevant, as climate change affects both physical space and meaningful social place and manifests itself differently locally. To understand which spatial, social, cultural, and symbolic factors influence perception, knowledge, and action about climate change, it is therefore important to consider spatiality in climate communication.

Global climate change and global warming are not identifiable in their entirety through personal experience due to their complexity and spatial extent. Scientists, therefore, try to make climate change visible to the public with the help of climate models and risk projections (Rudiak-Gould, 2013 ). This statistical construction of climate change creates a global, universal body of knowledge that summarizes locally observed changes over time and transfers them to the global scale (Mahony and Hulme, 2018 ). This scientific knowledge about climate change is communicated through various mass media, political, and professional conferences, and, most importantly, in the form of scientific assessments, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. This is intended to create a common consensus on the facts of climate change, justify the need for adaptation measures, and initiate change (Hulme, 2008 ). However, it is criticised that this knowledge, presented as global and universal, does not do justice to the different knowledge claims around the world and that more attention should be paid to spatial differences. For example, place-based knowledge from vulnerable indigenous communities is not considered sufficiently in the scientific construction of climate change, although climate change is already most noticeable in these places (Mahony and Hulme, 2018 ). Moreover, Hulme ( 2008 ) notes that “by constructing climate change as a global problem, one that is distanced and unsituated relative to an individual’s mental world, we make it easy for citizens to verbalise superficial concern with the problem, but a concern belied by little enthusiasm for behavioural change” (p. 8). Scannell and Gifford ( 2013 ) suggest that greater attention should also be paid to the role of place in climate communication. Local, personal, and current relevant messages will reduce the abstractness of the phenomenon, arouse personal concern, and promote engagement (Devine-Wright, 2013 ). This is attributed to psychological distance, i.e., the more distant a phenomenon is in the four dimensions of “social, spatial, temporal, and outcome certainty” (Rudiak-Gould, 2013 , p. 66), the more difficult it becomes to imagine. Therefore, a close attachment to place and nature can lead to the strengthening of pro-environmental behaviour and engagement, and to the emergence of sociocultural embedded knowledge that meets local demands (Devine-Wright, 2013 ). Locally occurring impacts of climate change can also be used to communicate the risks of climate change across space and to socially construct climate change elsewhere. For example, local individual phenomena, such as images of melting glaciers, stories of sinking islands, or voices from vulnerable communities, are used to highlight the wider and global issues of climate change (Rudiak-Gould, 2013 ).

Accordingly, geographic research has explored the role of place in climate change knowledge production and risk perception and has shown that place-based, personal narratives can help communicate climate change in culturally accessible ways. Meanwhile, less research has explored the role of space and place in stories that are less focused on communicating risk and more concerned with inspiring climate action and highlighting opportunities for social and political change.

Narrative Policy Framework for geographical research

The geographical interest in narratives and stories has increased since the ‘narrative turn’ in social sciences (Cameron, 2012 ; Godioli, 2018 ). It has become clear that geographical locations and space play a crucial role in stories, for example, creating social and cultural expectations, contributing to emotional identification with the characters, or enabling the contextualisation of the story (Hyvärinen, 2018 ). In addition, the narrative form of stories enables readers to experience space and place emotionally and see spaces from other perspectives (Parker, 2018 ). This is justified, for example, by “links between plot progression and movement across spaces” (Prince, 2018 , p. 175). Moreover, it became clear that a division can be made between the place where the story is told and the space in which the associated discourse can be located (Prince, 2018 ).

Although discourse analysis is typically used in geography (e.g. Farbotko and Lazrus, 2012 ; McEvoy and Wilder, 2012 ) to analyse the role of place and space in public and media discourses, this study relies on an alternative approach to analyse spatial determinants in action-based climate stories—the Narrative Policy Framework. The focus on stories and the narratives they produce justifies the NPF because it approaches discourse from a perspective that follows the storyline, the characters, and their intentions and allows for a spatial focus by looking at the setting. In this way, fixed elements and narrative strategies in stories can be identified, and thus, discourses can be empirically operationalised (Jones et al., 2014 ; Jones and McBeth, 2010 ; Jones and Peterson, 2017 ). The NPF is built on four crucial elements—characters, settings, plot, and morality (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017 ; Jones and McBeth, 2010 ).

NPF theory postulates that (political) narratives contain different characters, at least heroes, villains, and victims who act in specific locations, and the setting (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017 ; Jones et al., 2014 ). The hero figure is of particular relevance. If sufficient opportunities for identification are created, this triggers personal involvement on the reader’s part. Gustafson et al. ( 2020 ) point out that the experiences of the story characters lead to a better empathy with the problems and thus, possibilities for action become visible. The setting, as the second element of NPF theory, refers to a moment when the political problem is played out and forms the contextual framework (Jones et al., 2014 ). Local settings and spatial reference points create personal references and perspectives that are more likely to be familiar to the audience, which further increases the potential for identification (Bloomfield and Manktelow, 2021 ). By telling stories with a sense of place and local interests and highlighting possibilities for action there, these stories contribute to local knowledge and promote the ability to act. In this way, approaches to climate change adaptation can be better integrated into local social and cultural life (Ayeb-Karlsson and Uy, 2022 ; Howarth and Parsons, 2021 ). It is here where geographic research and concepts become particularly relevant and communication studies and geography can mutually enrich each other. Third, a typical story contains a beginning, a middle, and an end. The relationship between the different characters is shown along this plot line; the events are placed in spatial and temporal contexts and located in the setting (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017 ). The fourth and decisive element is the moral of the story—this should show and exemplify possible political but also personal solutions and ideas for action (Bevan et al., 2020 ). The NPF can be used to successfully investigate the role of place and space in climate change stories, as it is explicitly adapted to narrative structure and content (Bevan et al., 2020 ). In addition, the approach lends itself to a focus on action-based climate narratives, as NPF is used to examine the influence of narratives on individual and collective action. The NPF is useful for identifying narrative elements, such as the setting, that have implications for political beliefs and agency (Jones and McBeth, 2010 ).

Research shows that communicating facts about the risks of climate change is not enough to move people to action and engage them in social and political change. Action-based climate stories are needed to persuade people, stimulate social learning, and motivate them to take climate action. Geographic research shows that place, space, and place-based identity are critical to successful climate communication. The role these elements play in action-based climate stories is explored using the NPF as a theoretical lens, representing a new approach in geographic research.

Qualitative NFP research design

Gray and Jones ( 2016 ) present a guide for applying the NPF in qualitative research, which consists of four steps and forms the basis for this analysis. The first step involves describing the policy issue and contextualizing it. In our case, this is the analysis of Thunberg’s trip to the UN Climate Summit 2019. The research design is developed in the second step, and the methodology is selected. In the third step, the data is analysed, and the analysis process is discussed, followed by the presentation of results in the last and fourth step.

The policy issue

The research object of the study is Thunberg’s journey across the Atlantic to the UN Climate Summit 2019 in New York. Her intention can be summarised as drawing attention to the climate emergency and highlighting the possibilities and limitations of climate-friendly travel (Mkono et al., 2020 ).

Thunberg’s voyage has attracted much attention in the German print media, which has been enhanced by the prominence of her co-sailor Herrmann. Looking at the media coverage, her voyage is reproduced as a story: The young climate activist Thunberg, in the role of the main character, is invited to the UN Climate Summit in New York and crosses the Atlantic on Herrmann’s zero-emission racing yacht “Malizia”. The sailing crew, consisting of Thunberg and her father, professional sailor Herrmann, co-skipper Pierre Casiragh, and a cameraman, started on August 14, 2019, in Plymouth, United Kingdom, sailed more than 3700 nautical miles and reached New York within 14 days. On her way, Thunberg is exposed to the dangers of the ocean, must deal with the lack of comfort on-board the yacht, and earns both admiration and criticism for the trip.

This journey has triggered a controversial discussion in the German media, which tells different stories, portrays the characters in different lights, and draws different moral lessons from the journey. Moreover, an interesting aspect of media portrayal is the importance of the story’s setting. The following analysis will examine how the setting, and thus the role of place and space, influences the defining narratives and narrative elements in the story of Thunberg’s journey.

Data collection

We analyse the corresponding narratives of her journey in six German print newspapers: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( F.A.Z .), die Tageszeitung ( taz ), Die Zeit , Stern , Hamburger Abendblatt and Nordwest-Zeitung . These newspapers cover a broad political spectrum. We compare different types of newspapers and establish a spatial reference to Herrmann’s origin. F.A.Z . (conservative-liberal) and taz (left-alternative) are national daily newspapers. Die Zeit is a liberal political weekly based in Hamburg. Stern is a weekly political ‘general-interest newspaper’ (Pürer and Raabe, 2007 ). The regional newspapers Hamburger Abendblatt and Nordwest-Zeitung (published in Oldenburg) refer to the place of residence (Hamburg) and birthplace (Oldenburg) of Herrmann, respectively.

Considering the representativeness of these selections, the F.A.Z ., with around one million readers per issue, has the third-largest reach of the national daily newspapers in Germany. Only the tabloid-newspaper BILD and the left-liberal newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung have a larger readership. The taz reaches around 300,000 readers per issue, placing it sixth among Germany’s national newspapers. Stern and Die Zeit are two of the 17 weekly newspapers in Germany that report on current political events (Agma ( 2023 )). In addition, regional newspapers were included in the analysis because they reach 41.3 percent of the population in Germany and are thus the most widespread type of newspaper. The selection of the two newspapers is justified by their spatial relevance (Agma, 2020 ).

The period of analysis starts with Thunberg’s Twitter post on June 17, 2019, that she had decided to accept the invitation to the UN Climate Summit 2019 and was looking for a way to travel emission-free across the Atlantic. It ends on August 30, 2019, two days after Thunberg’s arrival in New York. Relevant newspaper articles were compiled with the help of the WISO and LexisNexis databases and the F.A.Z . online archive. Under the search term “Greta Thunberg”, a total of 49 articles were found in the six newspapers that dealt with Thunberg’s journey.

Methodologically, qualitative content analysis is used (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005 ; Mayring, 2004 ; Neuendorf, 2017 ; Schreier, 2013 ). The central component of the method is the rule-guided assignment of text passages to previously defined categories, which are derived from a combination of deductive and inductive elements (Flick, 2013 ; Mayring, 2004 ).

Qualitative NPF data analysis

Four main categories of NPF theory (characters, plot, moral, and setting), presented, for example, by Jones and McBeth ( 2010 ), guide the analysis of the story of Thunberg’s Atlantic crossing. These four elements form the deductive basis for the four main categories of the code, for each of which subcategories were formed. For the category ‘characters’ represent the four roles of hero, mentor, victim, and villain given by NPF; the plot consists of the categories beginning, middle, and end, while the moral was divided into positive, neutral, and negative coverage of Thunberg’s media-effective protest action. Finally, the setting was divided in terms of spatial reference aspects that create either proximity, distance or symbolic meaning. These codes were included in a coding guide and provided with corresponding coding rules.

The analysis was conducted by the research team using the qualitative analysis software Atlas.TI and followed the guidelines for qualitative content analysis according to Mayring ( 2004 ). The newspaper articles were analysed using the coding guide and the defined categories were assigned to specific text passages. In the pilot phase, the categories and codes were reviewed and adjusted. After the analysis was completed, an intracoder analysis was conducted in which part of the material was coded again and both versions were compared with each other. The validity of the coding is also supported by the multi-authorship as the codes were developed by the research team and the results of the coding were discussed afterwards. This ensures the reliability of the coding process. To achieve the research goal of examining the role of space and place in action-oriented climate narratives, the presentation of findings focuses on the setting. The other narrative elements influence and shape the setting, or are shaped by the setting, and thus occupy important parts of the findings.

Spatiality in the narratives of Thunberg’s sailing trip to New York

The main objective is to examine the role of place and space in action-based stories of climate change, using the example of Thunberg’s sailing trip to the UN Climate Summit 2019. Thunberg’s motive for her trip is to raise awareness of the climate emergency and to show the possibilities and limits of climate-friendly travel. In the following, the Narrative Policy Framework is used to analyse the role of the setting in the story and how spatial factors influence the plot, the characters, and their social interactions. Furthermore, the role of spatiality and locality in the moral message of the story and thus in the possibility to inspire action and engagement for social and political change will be analysed. Therefore, the physical space and the social meaning of the location (place) with local references are relevant for the analysis. In Fig. 1 , it is shown that the setting and spatial determinants influence the other structural elements of the Narrative Policy Framework.

The figure shows the role of setting within the Narrative Policy Framework and its influence on the other elements—plot, characters, and moral (own illustration by Linda Lütkes, no permission required).

Spatial determinants shape the storyline

The plot of a story, consisting of a beginning, middle, and end, situates the characters in time and space and establishes relationships between the characters and their environment (Jones and McBeth, 2010 ). Setting plays a crucial role in this process, as it helps, for example, to create conflicts and obstacles that the characters must overcome (Weible and Schlager, 2014 ). Therefore, an analysis of the setting is carried out to understand how space and place can shape the plot of the story of Thunberg’s transatlantic crossing.

The media narrative begins with the young climate activist being invited to the UN Climate Summit in New York and her wish to attend it. The spatial distance, the crossing of the ocean, is the first obstacle the protagonist has to overcome on her journey, as she wants to avoid flying by plane for environmental reasons. The F.A.Z . writes: “In June, Thunberg had set out via Twitter to find the most emission-free means of transportation possible to get from Europe to the United States” (Reuter, 2019 , p. 7, own transl.). Space is thus an important factor to overcome by Thunberg to achieve her goal. With her journey, she wants to show that “the world can also be changed by individual behaviour, and it is an appeal to the global community for more action against climate change” (Kreutzfeld, 2019 , p. 3, own transl.).

In Herrmann’s racing yacht ‘Malizia’, Thunberg finds a climate-neutral way to cross the Atlantic. The yacht then becomes the spatial setting for the main part of the story. The sailing ship is described as an “uncompromisingly designed racing yacht” (Rüdiger, 2019 , p. 26, own transl.), as a “racing yacht is never comfortable, but offers only the most minimal equipment in the pursuit of lightness. […] There are no toilets on board, and instead of beds, there are only two bunk beds” (DPA, 2019 , p. 6, own transl.). The crossing of the ocean by sailing ship is described in the newspapers as a danger and challenge for the climate activist and the sailing crew to overcome to get to New York. This is shown by Herrmann’s statements quoted by the Hamburger Abendblatt : “The North Atlantic is rough; we have big unpleasant waves in case of doubt. In addition, there are strong winds and, above all, the fight against sea sickness” (Laufer, 2019 , p. 11, own transl.). On the one hand, this creates a spatial distance linguistically, describing the vastness of the sea and the uncontrollability associated with it. However, at the same time, it also shows spatial proximity, for example, in the closeness to nature, since, for example, the travel plans are crucially dependent on weather conditions and the forces of nature. The Nordwest-Zeitung , therefore, considers “the Malizia II as an extremely fitting ship for Thunberg and her commitment to climate protection. The Fridays for Future-movement deserves credit for bringing a simple but uncomfortable fact back to society’s attention: We are dependent on nature even if we often suppress this in our highly technological everyday life” (Kleingärtner, 2019 , p. 4, own transl.).

The sea as a spatial obstacle on the way to New York can be perceived not only as a physical distance but also as a border between social spaces with different cultures. The boat is seen as a means to overcome this border (Hasty and Peters, 2012 ). However, these boundaries can have not only divisive but also unifying effects by fostering a sense of belonging and togetherness and enabling differentiation from others. Especially in the context of globalisation and the facilitated crossing of borders, their property of ‘creating order’ has become more important (Newman, 2006 ). Thunberg’s way of travelling, sailing across the ocean in a yacht, deviates from the conventional mobility of the globalised world. Instead of crossing the Atlantic by plane within a few hours and taking advantage of globalisation’s simplified border crossing, Thunberg takes an uncomfortable, two-week journey. “The 16-year-old travels by yacht because planes emit large amounts of greenhouse gases—and because there is no direct train connection from her hometown of Stockholm to the US metropolis” comments the Hamburger Abendblatt (Barth, 2019 , p. 21, own transl.). The fact that travelling by yacht is nowadays not perceived as a suitable way of travelling is also reflected in the lower status that the ship has in mobility research compared to the car, train, and airplane (Hasty and Peters, 2012 ).

In the end, Thunberg and the sailing crew overcome the dangers of the ocean and reach New York. 17 ships welcome the ‘Malizia’ in New York to symbolise the Sustainable Development Goals. Fans of Thunberg awaited the sailing crew. Locations play an important role in the plot of a story because of their ability to have a symbolic effect (Huxford, 2007 ). This can be recognised in the figurative effect of New York created in the reporting by using emotionally charged images. On the one hand, it is described as a place of freedom and unlimited possibilities, reflecting, for example, Herrmann’s statement quoted in the F.A.Z . “‘We will dock our yacht in New York directly in Manhattan below the Freedom Tower, where the World Trade Center once stood,’ says the 38-year-old German professional sailor. ‘That will be a very special atmosphere’” (Reuter, 2019 , p. 7, own transl.). At the same time, New York is pictured as being representative of America and as “delicate terrain” (Lindner, 2019 , p. 9, own transl.) for Thunberg, since “Donald Trump, after all, is not exactly considered an energetic fighter against climate change, as he signalled to the whole world at the latest by pulling out of the Paris climate agreement” (Lindner, 2019 , p. 9, own transl.). On the one hand, New York can be seen as a political space from which Thunberg can distance herself, and at the same time, through the diversity and openness of the city, find like-minded people and develop a sense of belonging (Newman, 2006 ).

The analysis of the spatial determinants in the story’s plot shows that the setting, consisting of space and place, can have an important influence on the narrative of Thunberg’s journey. The perception of physical space and distance changes through the means of transport and the travellers themselves, and the physical space develops into a place that decisively shapes the plot of the story, in which the roles of the characters develop and influence their relationships with each other.

Space becoming place

Space and social interactions are intimately related in stories—while space provides the material setting for social connections in which characters develop and shape their lives, these human actions are also crucial for turning space into a place with cultural and social significance (Cresswell, 2004 ). This can also be observed in the story of Thunberg’s journey.

Throughout most of the story, the spatial setting is strongly limited by the boat as it serves as a means of transportation, a place to live and sleep and interact with each other. Although it constantly changes its geographical location, it becomes a special kind of place for the five passengers of the boat (Cresswell, 2004 ). The ship is also perceived as a special means of transportation, characterised by the double burden of proximity (to fellow passengers and crew) and isolation (from the mainland) as well as the proximity to nature with all its dangers (Hasty and Peters, 2012 ). The isolation from the mainland and being cut off from the ordinary world causes a decoupling from society and a new form of social reality, reflected in the perception or role assignment of fellow passengers.

Thunberg is perceived on land as the celebrity of the voyage, admired even by the professional sailor Herrmann. Thunberg is described positively in all the newspapers studied with phrases such as “climate pop star” (Rüdiger, 2019 , p. 26, own transl.), “perhaps the world’s most famous teenager” (Plickert and Reuter, 2019 , p. 7, own transl.), and “the face of a global movement” (Schwinghammer, 2019 , p. 3, own transl.). Thunberg is hence perceived as heroic and iconic, a courageous young climate activist. Through this reporting on Thunberg and her actions, she helps alleviate feelings of hopelessness and helplessness related to the threat of climate change (Mkono et al., 2020 ). This embodiment of role models by celebrities is important for increasing interest in environmental issues and can have a mobilising effect (Hanna et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, the description of Thunberg as a heroine allows readers to empathise with her role and to follow more abstract information about climate change (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017 ; Gustafson et al., 2020 ).

Thunberg is also portrayed as a role model for Herrmann. The sailor’s quote in the Hamburger Abendblatt underlines his admiration for the young climate activist: “She stands up against ignorance and injustice in relation to the climate crisis with amazing courage. I feel humble that Greta has accepted our offer to cross the Atlantic on the ‘Malizia’ as the cleanest and most environmentally friendly option—despite the lack of comfort for her” (Hasse, 2019 , p. 11, own transl.). Herrmann himself is also a celebrity away from the voyage, celebrated in Germany as a professional sailor, and the newspaper taz assumed that “at least in terms of publicity, Thunberg’s voyage should also benefit from Herrmann” (Hansen, 2019 , p. 2, own transl.). In the context of the story, Herrmann can be associated with the role of a mentor figure. By offering to sail Thunberg across the Atlantic, he gives her the opportunity of a low-emission Atlantic crossing and supports her in achieving her goals.

As the setting changes, the roles and social interactions between the characters also change. The boat can therefore be understood as a place of an alternative order, where the normal conventions of identity are subverted (Hasty and Peters, 2012 ). The spatial setting for example reinforces Herrmann’s position as the mentor, clearly putting Thunberg into the position of the novice and helpless passenger whilst allowing for the portrayal of Herrmann as the leading figure during the trip. Thunberg puts herself in his hands and trusts his technical skills, while he is trying to do everything for her well-being while at the same time, he must tame the forces of nature on the ocean alone, for example, by “sailing on gentleness” (Widmann, 2019 , p. 1, own transl.). He also pays for the costs of the trip. Despite Thunberg’s fame, she is the subordinated figure during the voyage and furthermore takes on the role of the guest who is in an intermediary position between stranger and friend for a limited period of time (Pitt-Rivers, 1968 ). Thunberg, as a guest, does not have to work but can “send pictures of impressive amounts of water to the world” (Widmann, 2019 , p. 1, own transl.). In contrast, the F.A.Z . uses the setting to form Thunberg’s victim role. This ship is not perceived as a suitable place for people with Asperger’s syndrome and Thunberg is put in this uncomfortable situation by her father as the quote exemplifies: “And does this father know what he is doing to his daughter and to himself with this trip? People with Asperger’s syndrome are used to fixed habits and rituals, have difficulties with social communication and motor problems” (Breymann, 2019 , p. 21, own transl.). The newspaper Stern shows the effects of isolation from Thunberg’s point of view. “Honestly, I’m really looking forward to finally being isolated. Just to have nothing else to do. No interviews. No obligations. And also not so much internet and cell phone” (Breng and Stwaski, 2019 , p. 28, own transl.). Isolation strengthens Thunberg’s capacity for self-determination and can therefore be distinguished from the role of the victim.

The alternative order on board the ship shows that all social phenomena depend on the situational context in which they occur. Collins ( 2000 ) speaks of situational stratification because the usual social positions in society are not accessible at that moment, and interaction takes place in a way detached from society. This particular situation and the altered interaction between the two celebrities lasts two weeks. Although Thunberg’s and Herrmann’s interaction is disconnected from direct influence from the outside world, the event is simultaneously perceived and judged through worldwide news coverage. Michel de Certeau ( 1988 ) illustrates this with the metaphor of ships as dungeons. According to de Certeau, ships form closed systems in which the passengers are at the mercy of complete surveillance, and there are no possibilities of escape. Nevertheless, this spatial separateness also forms the possibility to distance oneself from reality, act separately, and to take on new roles. At the end of the journey and when leaving the ship, the passengers return to the roles in society that belong to them (De Certeau, 1988 ). During the voyage, Herrmann mainly assesses whether the boat is on course and when an arrival can be expected. But the moment the boat arrives in New York and the symbolic ‘door of the dungeon’ is opened, former role relations are restored. Thunberg is cheered by her fans, is received as a guest at the climate summit, and is thus the centre of attention. The F.A.Z . reported in detail on the reception committee that welcomed Thunberg in New York. “She was greeted by loud ‘Greta! Greta!’ shouts, some singing ‘Welcome, Greta’ to the tune of ‘Brother John’. Several hundred people have come, including many children and young people, as well as a huge media contingent. It is a handsome group, though not a mass gathering. People hold banners with inscriptions like ‘Make America Greta Again’ or ‘Welcome to New York’” (Lindner, 2019 , p. 9, own transl.). For Herrmann, on the other hand, the journey and accompanying media attention ends here and he returns to his everyday life. “Boris Herrmann flies back, and trees are planted to compensate for the CO 2 emitted. And four members of his team want to attempt a world record and chase the Malizia back to Europe in seven days. And immediately afterward, they will train in the Bretagne for the great adventure”, writes Die Zeit (Widmann, 2019 , S. 1).

Setting as a sense of place

The setting also plays an important role in conveying the moral message, with spatial factors influencing how messages are articulated and received and whether they can inspire engagement (Jones and McBeth, 2010 ). The moral of the story, as an important component for pointing out possible solutions and encouraging action, shows on the one hand that the reporting conveys Thunberg’s motive for action, to draw attention to the climate emergency with her journey and to show the possibilities and limits of climate-friendly action (Mkono et al., 2020 ). This becomes obvious in the report in the Hamburger Abendblatt : “Greta has to travel climate neutrally as a symbolic figure of a movement and thus show how it might be possible” (Heider, 2019 , p. 2, own transl.). In the F.A.Z ., forecasts are made on what impact such symbolic effects will have on climate protection. “Assuming (only) 10 million people really liked the campaign and decided to save one kilogram of CO 2 once. In purely arithmetical terms, that would be 10,000 metric tons, which is probably at least a hundred times what could theoretically have been saved. Doesn’t this prospect alone justify such an action?” (Reichel, 2019 , p. 18, own transl.). The unusual way of overcoming spatial distance by ship thus illustrates the limits and possibilities of climate-friendly action in the globalised world. The taz underlines this symbolic component of the journey: “But by getting into a sailboat and travelling unusually, she prolongs the attention for the urgency of climate policy to a maximum. Let’s put it simply: Greta Thunberg’s sailing trip to America could become the most important since Christopher Columbus” (Unfried, 2019 , p. 2, own transl.).

However, the reporting is also characterised by negative associations with Thunberg’s journey, questioning and criticising her actions. For example, the taz published that several transatlantic flights were necessary to realise Thunberg’s trip, as the sailing crew travelled back to Europe by air. The report says: “Greta’s sailing trip is more harmful to the climate than flying; Greta Thunberg’s trip to the USA on a yacht is emission-free. But more Atlantic flights are needed to bring the boat and crew back than if she had flown herself” (Maurin, 2019 , p. 12, own transl.). An additional critique is that crossing the Atlantic by racing yacht does not illustrate any possibility of action for the normal citizen, because it is not feasible in terms of time and money. The taz writes: “There is no climate-friendly option for ordinary people these days. After all, only extremely few sailors cross the Atlantic. A two-week tour is simply too long for most people with a normal vacation and time allotment. And ocean sailors also have little room for passengers. Cargo ships take only a few guests, and even then, only for hefty fees of, for example, more than 1,000 Euros each way” (Maurin, 2019 , p. 12, own transl.). This option is also not an alternative for other participants of the UN Climate Summit. For example, the taz comments, “Greta’s sailing trip cannot necessarily be a model for Angela Merkel. Sailing takes time, and sponsorship is certainly not an option for a chancellor” (Barth, 2019 , p. 21, own transl.). Accordingly, no direct possibility of action is shown, and a distance is created between Thunberg and the readers’ lifeworld. In contrast to what climate storytelling is aiming for, this does not highlight any options for action that could encourage climate-friendly agency but rather conveys a mood of despair and hopelessness (Meyer et al., 2021 ).

The dedicatedly leftist newspaper taz is most critical of the trip Footnote 1 . Here there is the least sympathy for the extraordinary effort of crossing the ocean by boat and the most critical research into the extended carbon footprint of her voyage. The taz assumes that climate-friendly lifestyle changes cannot be achieved by conveying symbolic messages alone. It is crucial that concrete, realistic alternatives for action are demonstrated. “That’s why it would have been good, very good if Greta Thunberg had appeared at the climate summit via monitor. The message: You don’t all have to fly all the time to achieve what you want. Sometimes a conference call is enough. True, it’s much more boring than travelling by racing yacht. But it can have a much greater impact in the long term. Because then the question is whether a trip is necessary at all. Sometimes the journey is not the destination after all” (Gaus, 2019 , p. 2, own transl.). The dimension of morality is here understood as a policy recommendation, in line with NPF theory (Fløttum and Gjerstad, 2017 ). Pointing out realistic options for action is considered decisive in climate communication, as only such options are adapted to everyday behaviour and accepted by citizens (Meyer et al., 2021 ). Therefore, it must be critically discussed whether overcoming the physical space in the globalised world through a sailing trip across the Atlantic is necessary to make people aware of the climate emergency through media attention. The approach taken by the taz , overcoming great distances by technical, digital means in the form of video conferences, is shown as an alternative for action. The UN Climate Summit and the coverage of Thunberg’s trip already took place in the summer of 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, when communication via video feeds in such contexts was much less popular. It becomes clear that moral messages, in various ways, can be found in the news discourse. However, another article in the same newspaper confirms Thunberg’s decision to change location and attend the climate conference in person:

“Greta Thunberg refers to a different sense of travel, a different sense of life, and a different understanding of politics. She is about using her time for what is important to her, that is the moral of this story. So state, European, and transnational climate politics. That’s why she travels to New York to speak there. Because she has to be there if she wants to influence the actors there, the event, and its media reception. You can’t do that with a Skype call” (Unfried, 2019 , p. 2, own translation).

In addition to overcoming space to symbolise the message, local references also play a role in how the message is communicated to the readers. The reporting makes spatial reference to Herrmann’s origins and home. While the nationally published F.A.Z . creates identification possibilities for people from different places with expressions such as ‘German professional sailor’, ‘Hamburger’ or ‘Native of Oldenburg’, a focus on the respective city can be seen in the regional newspapers. In the reporting by Nordwest-Zeitung , spatial proximity is created by references to Herrmann’s childhood in Oldenburg, for example by mentioning that he learned to sail on Lake Zwischenahn in the Oldenburg region. The Hamburger Abendblatt reinforces the sense of belonging to Hamburg as his place of residence by mentioning his everyday life, his life partner living in Hamburg, and his involvement with Hamburg Climate Week. Previous research has demonstrated the importance of localities as places of belonging, as a social environment, and as platforms for identification (Antonsich, 2010 ; Bloomfield and Manktelow, 2021 ). Local attachment can contribute to forming identity narratives and, thus, constitutes an important element of stories (Tomaney, 2015 ). Stories being told in the context of a sense of place and local interests, and by highlighting possibilities for action, can contribute to local knowledge. Stories promote the ability to act at this level. As a result, approaches to climate change adaptation can be better integrated into local social and cultural life (Howarth and Parsons, 2021 ).

Space and place play an important role in conveying the moral message in the story of Thunberg’s journey to the UN Climate Summit. On the one hand, overcoming space with the unusual means of transport of the ship is crucial for the symbolic scope of the message and the accompanying media attention. On the other hand, local references can also trigger a sense of belonging and build a possibility of identification with the characters (Agnew, 2011 ). Spatial determinants thus shape the way the message is constructed and how it is conveyed and received.

This paper shows the relevance of storytelling in climate communication to highlight possibilities for action and to convince people to engage in social and political change processes. Although it has already been studied that space and place are important factors in communicating climate emergency, it is criticised that the role of spatial determinants in climate change narratives has not yet been widely studied. Using the re-narrating of Thunberg’s Atlantic crossing on a racing yacht piloted by German professional sailor Herrmann to attend the UN Climate Summit in New York as an example, the paper analyses how stories are influenced by space and place. The analysis of six German newspapers, selected to represent a broad section of the political spectrum and various newspaper types (weeklies, dailies, regional newspapers), is based on the Narrative Policy Framework. We especially focused on the role of geographical settings (the boat, the sea, New York, and the place attachments of Herrmann as a German citizen who lives in Hamburg), highlighting that setting as a spatial context is not only a passive background on which the storyline unfolds but an active element that shapes the narrative and the ways characters can (inter)act within these settings. From a geographical perspective, we especially explored the ambivalence of proximity and distance, the spatiality of the boat, and the affordances and constraints the boat has for social interactions.

We advance the NPF with a geographic lens by particularly focusing on the constraints and affordances of spaces for social interactions and affective attachments. In addition, we foreground that spatial contexts and environments influence the other structural elements of the Narrative Policy Framework—characters, plot, and moral—thus decisively influencing the types of emerging narratives.

In our example, it becomes clear that space and spatial distances change in the context of the attempt to travel in a climate-friendly way and become central obstacles for Thunberg as the protagonist, thus decisively determining the storyline. The perception of physical space is therefore dependent on the characters who act in it. The characters are shaped by the setting that surrounds them, defining their roles and shaping their social interactions. This becomes clear, for example, through the setting of the boat, which, despite the constantly changing geographical locality, develops into a special place for Thunberg, Herrmann, and the crew and redefines their social roles. The setting also influences the construction and communication of the moral of the story. The unusual way of overcoming the physical distance of the ocean—by sailing yacht instead of by plane, as is common in the globalised world—symbolises the moral message of the story and provides media attention for the climate emergency. At the same time, local references, for example to Herrmann’s origins and place of residence, create opportunities to identify with the story and its characters, to take action, and to engage in social and political change processes.

Our paper hence not only contributes novel empirical insights but also experiments with the NPF to take spatiality and settings as central foci in how we narrate stories about climate change and actions to combat it. We conclude this paper by highlighting the need for greater consideration of geographic determinants in action-oriented narratives in climate change communication to inspire engagement and a sense of efficacy in people.

Data availability

All newspaper articles used in the analysis are publicly available.

Parties that support climate and environmental protection and movements like Fridays for Future are typically located on the political left in Germany (Oswald et al., 2021 ). Thus, it is surprising that a left-wing, green-oriented newspaper is most strongly opposed to Thunberg’s trip.

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Lütkes, L., Tuitjer, L. & Dirksmeier, P. Sailing to save the planet? Media-produced narratives of Greta Thunberg’s trip to the UN Climate Summit in German print newspapers. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 242 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01743-6

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Teen activist Greta Thunberg arrives in New York by boat, putting ‘climate crisis’ in spotlight

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Flight shaming: ‘Greta effect’ is slowing down air travel

Born in Sweden, the movement to discourage taking planes for environmental reasons has spread to travelers far and wide.

Logos of airlines SAS, Swiss and Icelandair are seen on the tail fins of aircrafts at Zurich airport

One in five Western travellers is flying less, as “flight shaming” propels people to shun air travel for the sake of the planet – according to a survey of 6,000 Americans and Europeans by Swiss bank UBS.

The survey predicted environmental concerns would keep denting air traffic, as activists such as Sweden ‘s Greta Thunberg lead the way and turn people off planes.

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Emma Kemp, 25, a campaigner and fundraising manager at United Kingdom climate change charity 10:10, said she skipped flying for her last tourist trip to Italy and Croatia and opted to get around by bus, train and ferry instead.

“I felt I was really travelling,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “And I felt at peace with myself, having done something for the planet.”

If these trends continue, the expected growth in passenger numbers could be halved, UBS said in a report published this week.

UBS’s July-August survey showed that, on average, about 20 percent of travellers in the United States , France , Germany and the UK had cut air travel by at least one flight in the past year because of concerns about climate change .

Commercial flying accounts for about two percent of global carbon emissions and about 12 percent of transport emissions, according to the Air Transport Action Group, an aviation industry group.

The survey also found that the percentage of people thinking of reducing their flying for the same reason had climbed to 27 percent, up from 20 percent in a previous survey during May 2019.

“With the pace of the climate change debate, we think it is fair to assume that these trends are likely to continue in developed markets,” wrote UBS analyst Celine Fornaro.

UBS said it expects the number of flights in the European Union will increase by just 1.5 percent per year, which is half the rate predicted by plane manufacturer Airbus.

Any cut in air travel will hit air manufacturers hard, with new plane orders at risk if travellers increasingly turn to trains and boats to take trips with a cleaner conscience.

‘Elephant in the room’

In August, 16-year-old Thunberg – an icon for young environmental protesters – crossed the Atlantic in a racing yacht with no shower or toilet to join protests in the US and take part in the United Nations Climate Action Summit .

Thunberg said the voyage cut her own carbon footprint and “sends a signal to other people around you that the climate crisis is a real thing”.

Her country, Sweden, has led a movement that rests on the idea that travelling on kerosene-guzzling jets is shameful.

It was also responsible for the Swedish concept of “flygskam”- exported as “flight shaming” in English and trending as “avihonte” on French social media.

Scandinavian airline SAS has seen passenger traffic shrink two percent this year, while Sweden’s airport operator said it handled nine percent fewer passengers for domestic flights this year than in 2018. Both have blamed “flight shame”.

Companies such as Klarna Bank AB are cutting back on business flights. The Swedish bank has banned all employee air travel within Europe and discourages long-haul flights.

The anti-flying movement – which emerged in 2017 after singer Staffan Lindberg pledged to give up flying – has now spread well beyond its native Sweden.

Germany has announced plans to cut taxes for train journeys and boost fees for flights. And as world leaders met in New York City for the UN Climate Action Summit last month, delegates were quick to quiz each other on how they travelled as “flight shame” reached peak attention.

“If there’s an elephant in the room … of course it’s aviation,” Norway ‘s Minister of Climate and Environment Ola Elvestuen told the summit.

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Greta Thunberg joins hundreds marching in England to protest airport’s expansion for private planes

In this photo issued by Extinction Rebellion UK, climate activist Greta Thunberg, third right, takes part in a march to Farnborough Airport in southern England, Saturday Jan. 27, 2024. Greta Thunberg joined the march to protest the use of private jets and the expansion of an airport. Hundreds of local residents and activists holding banners and placards took part. (Extinction Rebellion UK via AP)

In this photo issued by Extinction Rebellion UK, climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in a march to Farnborough Airport in southern England, Saturday Jan. 27, 2024. Greta Thunberg joined the march to protest the use of private jets and the expansion of an airport. Hundreds of local residents and activists holding banners and placards took part. (Jonathon Vines/Extinction Rebellion UK via AP)

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LONDON (AP) — Climate activist Greta Thunberg joined a march in southern England on Saturday to protest the use of private jets and the expansion of an airport.

Hundreds of local residents and activists holding banners and placards that read “Ban Private Jets” marched to Farnborough Airport, which mostly serves private aircraft. Some beat drums while others lit pink smoke flares.

The airport, located in Hampshire County about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of London, applied last year to increase its maximum number of flights from 50,000 to 70,000 a year.

Groups working to fight climate change, including the organizer of Saturday’s protest, Extinction Rebellion, say private jets are much more polluting than commercial passenger airliners. Flights to and from Farnborough Airport carried an average of 2½ passengers per flight in 2022, the group said.

“It is clear that private jets are incompatible with ensuring present and future living conditions on this planet,” Thunberg said in a video that Extinction Rebellion posted on social media.

“We’re not going to let this continue. We’re not going to let the rich few who are responsible for the majority of aviation emissions get away with sacrificing people and the planet,” she added.

FILE - A road worker stops to take a drink of water in Madrid, Spain, Monday, July 18, 2022. The U.N. labor organization warned Monday, April 22, 2024, that over 70% of the world's workforce is likely to be exposed to excessive heat during their careers, citing increased concern about exposure to sunlight. It also warned of air pollution, pesticides and other hazards that could lead to health problems, including cancer. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)

Farnborough Airport said that it was an important hub for business and corporate travel, and that it recognized the importance of reducing its environmental impact.

“The airport’s environmental footprint is a fraction that of a traditional commercial airport, yet it serves as one of the largest employment sites in the region,” it said in a statement.

Thunberg, 21, a Swedish environmental campaigner who inspired a global youth movement against climate change, is expected to appear at a court in London next week to face a public order offense charge . She was arrested in October during a demonstration against a major oil and gas industry conference.

Thunberg was among the activists who were charged for seeking to block access to the Energy Intelligence Forum. She denied the charge.

Follow AP’s coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment .

Flight shaming hits air travel as 'Greta effect' takes off

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Greta Thunberg to travel to US by boat for climate summits because she refuses to fly

Greta Thunberg says she has been offered a lift on a racing yacht from a member of Monaco's royal family.

By Tania Snuggs, news reporter

Tuesday 30 July 2019 16:33, UK

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has revealed she's travelling from Britain to the US next month by boat to attend two key conferences - because she refuses to fly.

The 16-year-old, who has long shunned using planes because of their high greenhouse gas emissions, says she has spent months trying to figure out how to get to New York for the talks in September.

But now she has revealed on Twitter that she has been offered a lift across the Atlantic by a member of Monaco's royal family.

The Malizia II is a 60ft racing yacht fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate zero-carbon electricity on board.

Good news! I’ll be joining the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, COP25 in Santiago and other events along the way. I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II. We’ll be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to NYC in mid August. #UniteBehindTheScience pic.twitter.com/9OH6mOEDce — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) July 29, 2019

Pierre Casiraghi, the grandson of Monaco's late Prince Rainier III and American actress Grace Kelly, will join Greta on the trip - expected to last two weeks - as will her father and a filmmaker.

Breaking her normally serious demeanour with a giggle, she said: "I haven't experienced anything like this before. I think this will be a trip to remember."

It is expected that most of the activists and leaders from outside the Americas attending the UN climate conference will be coming by plane.

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Greta added: "I'm not saying that people should stop flying. I'm just saying it needs to be easier to be climate neutral."

Although little-known in the US, Greta has inspired an international movement to fight climate change, and thinks a meeting with Donald Trump would be "a waste of time".

President Trump speak to the media in the Oval Office

The US President pulled out of the landmark Paris climate accord and insists global warming is a hoax.

She said: "As it looks now, I don't think so, because I have nothing to say to him.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg addresses French parliament

"He obviously doesn't listen to the science and the scientists. So why should I, a child with no proper education, be able to convince him?"

Greta has though, met Pope Francis, who praised her efforts and encouraged her to continue campaigning.

She plans to take a year off from school to keep raising awareness of climate change and pressuring world leaders to step up efforts to curb global warming.

Monaco royal family member Pierre Casiraghi on board the Malizia

After New York, she will head to another conference in Chile in December, stopping in Canada, Mexico and other countries along the way using buses and trains.

She says this year her life has been "turned upside down".

"Every day is an adventure, basically. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and say 'Is this really real? Has this actually been happening?'

"Because it has all happened so fast and it's hard to keep up with everything.

"In a way, I am more optimistic, because people are slowly waking up and people are becoming more aware of the situation.

"But also, one year has passed and still almost nothing has happened."

Fifteen women chosen by the duchess feature on the cover

Climate campaigners have also praised her efforts, with Greenpeace Germany executive director Martin Kaiser saying: "She has read all the science. That gives her a lot of credibility.

"She has motivated a whole generation in Europe to learn about climate change."

And on Sunday, it was announced that the Duchess of Sussex had chosen Greta to be among 15 "trail-blazing change makers" to feature on the front cover of September's edition of British Vogue, which Meghan has guest edited.

But not everyone is as positive.

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Greta has faced some negative criticism from people who do not believe in climate change.

She added: "I don't care about hate and threats from climate crisis deniers.

"I just ignore them."

After her North American tour ends, how is Greta Thunberg getting home?

The 60-foot yacht she chartered to get her to New York has returned to Europe, and Thunberg says she does not know how she will return to Sweden

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Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, has been making waves the world over with powerful speeches and appearances in climate strikes.

Since late August, she’s been on a tour of North America, attending rallies, meeting with world leaders, and speaking at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City. She marched in a climate strike in Edmonton on Friday, Oct. 18.

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Thunberg has said she received many requests to speak at events internationally, but declined due to the extensive travel it would require. But she decided to make an exception to attend the UN climate summit as well as a major UN climate change conference in Santiago, Chile, where her trip is scheduled to end.

I don't know yet how I will get home

Her trip to North America is well-documented — she sailed for 15 days from England to New York on a carbon-neutral racing yacht to avoid the huge impact air travel has on carbon emissions.

But now that she’s finally here, some have begun to wonder: how is she getting back home to Sweden?

Before she left England in August, she said “I don’t know yet how I will get home,” according to the Daily Mail .

For starters, the boat she took to get to New York, the Malizia II, has returned to Europe. Despite trying to avoid carbon emissions, her organization has seen some criticism because the crew returned by plane — her team said the emissions were offset.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg's visit inspires Edmonton climate march

Which means that Thunberg is left with either chartering a plane, which she refuses to do, hopping on a commercial cruise line, which she’s also spoken out against because of the emissions, or chartering another carbon neutral boat to come pick her up.

“Greta doesn’t take airplanes so she’ll have to get to both Chile and back to Sweden using other modes of transportation,” a spokesperson for Thunberg’s team told Vox .

“The details are not confirmed yet.”

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Greta Thunberg: ‘Activism filled my life with meaning’

The 19-year-old swedish environmental activist – turned into a global icon in the fight against climate change – is promoting her new book and thinking about what she should study.

Greta Thunberg, in a photo shared by Penguin Random House.

It’s pitch black at Stockholm Central Station after a 14-hour journey by train from Hamburg, Germany. Not travelling by plane was a condition to do this interview.

The appointment takes place a few hours later, on a sunny Saturday morning in early October, at the elegant Swedish branch of Polaris Publishing. At the agreed-upon time, a petite blonde girl – dressed casually in black pants, a grey t-shirt and sweatshirt – appears and chirps “Hello!”

Greta Thunberg needs no introduction. At the age of 15, the Swedish teenager staged a sit-in in front of her country’s parliament to raise awareness about the climate change threat. Today, she is a 19-year-old woman thinking about university.

“Why did you ask us to come by train?”

“Well, I don’t want people to fly just for fun, I guess.”

Thunberg is consistent. For years, she has refused to travel by plane due to the enormous environmental impact that flights generate. She’s vegan, she doesn’t buy new clothes and she moves around her city by bicycle. “But that’s mostly because it’s convenient for me,” she jokes.

She looks relaxed and happy: no sign of the sulky, bossy girl that was portrayed negatively by opponents during the 2018 School Strike for Climate. Supposedly, Greta wanted us all to go back to living in caves.

“It’s funny, because I never actually said that. That’s their own invention. It just shows how fragile some people are. They don’t want to be lectured at, especially not by a young woman.”

The Covid-19 pandemic kept Thunberg – and everyone else – locked up at home. Out of those dark and lazy Swedish afternoons came the idea for The Climate Book , set to be released later this month by Penguin Random House. For the project, Thunberg brought together more than 100 experts to offer up their knowledge about the climate crisis – “the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced,” as defined in the prologue.

In the book, figures such as climatologist Friederike Otto, economist Thomas Piketty , meteorologist Carlos Nobre and writer Margaret Atwood compose a story – at times a terrifying one – about what awaits us if we don’t reduce carbon emissions.

When asked if she’s optimistic about the future of humanity, she replies: “If I thought people weren’t going to change, I would give up.”

While there are still some climate change deniers out there, Thunberg isn’t really concerned about them – she’s more worried about climate delayers.

“[These leaders] say, ‘yes, climate change is real, but we can’t act now, let’s wait.’ Those are the dangerous ones.”

Greta Thunberg at a protest outside the Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, circa 2019.

When Thunberg organized her school strike in 2018, she was a withdrawn teenager who was horrified by the destruction of the planet and the indolence of adults. So, one day, she sat in front of the Riksdag – the Swedish parliament – with a handmade banner that read: “School strike for the climate.” Her father, Svante, kept an eye on her from afar. Soon, other students – along with some of their parents and teachers – joined her. The media began to take an interest.

From that first action, Fridays for Future was born. Initially a school strike held every Friday, it grew into a global climate protest, culminating in over four million people across the world voicing their views on September 20, 2019.

Diagnosed with Asperger’s and obsessive-compulsive disorder at the age of 11, there was a time when depression caused Thunberg to practically stop eating and talking. Her parents – opera singer Malena Ernman and arts manager Svante Thunberg – describe the hell the family went through. Today, Thunberg is almost as well known for her environmental activism as she is for her commitment to destigmatize autism.

“It’s so important to talk about it,” she says. “It was very natural for me to do it, but then people started thanking me for being so open. And I thought: ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ It’s not something I should be ashamed of. I would have liked people to be more open when I was little, because it would have helped me.”

Activism changed Thunberg’s life. “It gave me something to fight for, it gave me purpose. It filled my life with meaning. Something to wake up for in the morning and feel like you’re doing something important.”

Greta Thunberg attends a climate strike with her peers from Fridays for Future in Stockholm, October 1, 2022.

Thunberg’s activism is all-encompassing. When the interview ends, she says that she’s off to join her colleagues from Fridays for Future, who are staging an action in the center of the city. It’s not just for the climate: it will convoke a variety of feminist, anti-racist, anti-fascist and climate justice movements in Medborgarplatsen, or “Citizen Square.”

We find her later in the square, shouting slogans alongside other teenage boys and girls.

No one approaches her. Sweden is a country where there is very little interest in celebrities. Thunberg goes completely unnoticed.

It’s a relief for her. She wants the attention to be on the climate movement and those who are directly affected by the climate crisis. While she will be promoting her book with a handful of face-to-face interviews, she won’t be attending the next UN climate summit, COP27, which is being held in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh.

“There are going to be a lot of other activists there. I don’t have to be there.”

I ask if she feels that climate summits are really useful.

“They can be, but right now, they are not. We completely lack the accountability that is needed from the people in power to start making real changes.”

A protestor holds a handmade sign with an image of Greta Thunberg and her famous phrase, “How dare you?” directed at American President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in Seoul, South Korea.

Thunberg explains that, at COP26 in Glasgow , fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered all the national delegations. “Without massive pressure from the outside, the [politicians] will delay for as long as they can.”

Thunberg acknowledges that the momentum that the climate movement achieved in 2019 has run out of steam, especially with the pandemic, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“It seems that we are physically unable to focus on more than one thing at a time. And that has to change, because there are always going to be a lot of pressing issues that deserve our attention.”

Greta Thunberg during a press conference with climate activists from across Africa, in Stockholm, circa January 2020.

Activism helped bring Thunberg out of her social isolation. Over the last few years, she has met many young activists from around the world who are now her friends. Some live in countries that do not respect human rights or freedom of expression – such as Egypt, where COP27 is being held – and she is always very concerned about their well-being.

While continuing her activism, Thunberg is thinking about whether to enroll in university and what she would like to study. A few months ago, she became independent – she now lives with friends in a flat in the center of Stockholm.

When asked if it’s a big flat, she laughs.

“Small. One room. I sleep in the hall. The real estate market here is crazy.”

And what do her parents think of this living situation?

“As long as I’m happy, I guess they are too.”

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Greta Thunberg's refusal to take any flights since 2015 has spawned a whole 'train-bragging' movement, and it's ushered in a new era for luxury travelers around the world

Inspired by climate activist Greta Thunberg 's eco-conscious travel, two Swedish terms have become 2019 buzzwords : flygskam (flight shame) and tagskryt (train-bragging).
"Bragging" about reducing carbon footprints through train travel has led to an uptick in rail investments across Europe, especially overnight commuter services.
Train-bragging sentiment has fueled the resurgence of luxury train travel.
Beyond being an eco-friendly alternative to planes, trains appeal to a growing appetite for slow travel and meaningful experiences in today's fast-paced world.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Step aside hygge , this year's buzzwords are flygskam (flight shame) and tagskryt (train-bragging).

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who spoke at the UN's Climate Action Summit in September and was voted Time's 2019 Person of the Year , is a big part of the reason why these Swedish terms have gained traction. To minimize her environmental footprint, Thunberg hasn't flown since 2015 , opting for greener travel options such as trains and a 60-foot solar-powered yacht .

The so-called " Greta Effect " has spread throughout Sweden and Europe, inspiring travelers to "brag" about their eco-conscious train travel. A Swedish Facebook group called "Train Vacation" dedicated to discussing how to travel by train through Europe has seen its membership soar to 107,000 this year, up from 3,000 in 2017 .

This renewed interest in rail travel has contributed to an uptick in rail investments across Europe, especially overnight services. Sweden is creating a public tender to add overnight train services to other countries; Austrian Federal Railways is pouring $221 million into renovating sleeper cars; and Italy's Trenitalia is spending $334 million on new trains and updates, Boris Groendahl and Catherine Bosley reported for Bloomberg.

And commuter sleepers aren't the only trains making a comeback.

Luxury travel operators are cashing in on the eco-friendly movement

Emphasis on the environment is fueling the resurgence of luxury train travel.

Capitalizing on the train-bragging sentiment, luxury travel tour operator Original Travel added 2020 train-only journeys to destinations including Italy, Canada, and Japan and is also developing train-based trips through Europe, Angelina Villa-Clarke reported for Forbes.

Train travel offers a slower pace of vacationing in a fast-paced world

The convenience of budget airlines has been widely cited as a reason for the decline of train travel. But as airports and highways become more congested, trains are becoming an alluring alternative. Guy Saunders, founder of luxury train travel company Planet Rail, told Matsangou in 2018 that his customers enjoy the fact that there is "no need to go anywhere near an airport."

And traveler tastes have changed. In a fast-paced world, travelers are also looking to slow down. According to Booking.com's 2020 predictions , "Slo-mo is the #FOMO." In other words, the rushing-to-be-everywhere zeitgeist, captured by the popular hashtag #fearofmissingout, has shifted to savoring the moment and appreciating the journey. Booking.com reports that 62% of its travelers want to go on a trip where transportation is part of the experience, and 64% are interested in historic luxury train journeys.

Travelers are also increasingly searching for meaningful experiences. According to the Global Wellness Summit's 2018 Trends Report, travelers want experiences that are not only authentic but that also resonate on a "deeper emotional level," Business Insider's Katie Warren previously reported .

Trains offer this chance to connect with destinations in a more intimate way, Saunders said. "It is a far more authentic travel experience than jumping on a plane and suddenly arriving in a different country. You get to see the scenery change and new landscapes unfold," he told Matsangou.

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Main content

Greta Thunberg Charged For Ignoring Police Orders Over Climate Protests

"The court date has been set for May 8," a court clerk told AFP on Tuesday.

She has been charged with two counts of civil disobedience (File)

Swedish prosecutors have charged climate campaigner Greta Thunberg with civil disobedience for ignoring police orders to leave two climate demonstrations blocking Sweden's parliament in March, court documents showed.

Thunberg, 21, and other activists blocked the main entrance to Sweden's parliament in a protest that began on March 11 and was repeated over several days.

Politicians were still able to enter parliament through side entrances.

Thunberg was physically removed by police on March 12 and 14 after refusing to obey their orders to leave the scene.

She has been charged with two counts of civil disobedience, and has denied the charges, according to court documents seen by AFP.

In February, a London court threw out a public order case against Thunberg and four other protesters, ruling that police at an environmental protest in October had attempted to impose "unlawful" conditions before officers arrested dozens of demonstrators.

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Thunberg has twice been fined by Swedish courts, in July and October 2023, for civil disobedience at climate protests.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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COMMENTS

Transatlantic voyages of Greta Thunberg
Climate activist Greta Thunberg made a double crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 2019 to attend climate conferences in New York City and, until it was moved, Santiago, Chile.She sailed from Plymouth, UK, to New York, United States aboard the racing yacht Malizia II (the Italian for "malice"), returning from Hampton, Virginia, to Lisbon on the catamaran La Vagabonde.
Greta Thunberg's Not-So-Little Carbon Footprint
Greta has one more mode of travel—a Tesla Model 3 loaned to her by Arnold Schwarzenegger to use while she's here in the states. As an EV, it would be easy to assume that this is a zero ...
Greta Thunberg popularized flight shaming. Now airlines are worried
Travel by plane and you might get 'flight shamed.' This worries airlines Climate change activist Greta Thunberg waves from the Malizia II boat in Plymouth, England, on Aug. 14, 2019.
The No-Jet Set: They've Given Up Flying to Save the Planet
Many Americans are aware of Sweden's young climate activist Greta Thunberg, who in 2019 chose to sail across the Atlantic on an emissions-free yacht to speak to the United Nations. But Swedes ...
Flying shame: Greta Thunberg gave up flights to fight climate change
Air travel is a huge contributor to climate change. A new global movement wants you to be ashamed to fly. Greta Thunberg gave up flights to fight climate change.
Greta Thunberg Arrives in New York After Sailing Across Atlantic
The Malizia II, a zero-carbon yacht, with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, arrives in the US after a 15-day journey crossing the Atlantic in on Aug. 28, 2019 in New York. JOHANNES ...
How green is Greta Thunberg's transatlantic trip?
Greta Thunberg has set sail for New York, avoiding a plane journey for environmental reasons, but will her transatlantic trip really be 100% zero carbon?
How eco-warrior Greta Thunberg travels
last updated 30 July 2019. Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg has found a suitably green way to travel from the UK to the US in order to spread her message - a high-speed racing yacht ...
Travel by Plane and You Might Get 'Flight Shamed.' This Worries
Environmental crusader Greta Thunberg The Swedish teenager, who has been vocal about combating climate change, may have played a role in a recent 4% drop in the number of commercial passengers ...
Flight shaming is taking off
W hen 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg arrived in London as part of her awareness tour in April, the way she travelled was part of her message. After leaving her home in ...
Don't let Greta Thunberg's flight shaming movement end air travel, say
A coalition of Conservative MPs is taking on Greta Thunberg and the flight-shaming movement by pushing for new policies that would allow families to jet away on "guilt-free" holidays. Former ...
Greta Thunberg helps travel firms ride a wave of flight shame
There has been a surge of interest in transatlantic voyages as travellers try to avoid "flight shame" and emulate the climate activist Greta Thunberg's carbon-neutral sailing trips.Miss ...
'No sea sickness so far': Greta Thunberg update on Atlantic crossing
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 17, 2019. ... She refused to travel by plane to the US because of the environmental impact of flying.
Greta Thunberg on How We Can All Be Climate Positive Travelers
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg first came to the world's attention as a teenager when she spoke up at a United Nations summit in 2019, imploring all to take the climate crisis more ...
Sailing to save the planet? Media-produced narratives of Greta Thunberg
"Greta Thunberg refers to a different sense of travel, a different sense of life, and a different understanding of politics. She is about using her time for what is important to her, that is the ...
Teen activist Greta Thunberg arrives in New York by boat, putting
Refusing to take a gas-guzzling plane, the Swedish teen decided on a zero-carbon mode of transportation to further bring awareness to the dangers of rising global emissions and pollution caused by ...
Flight shaming: 'Greta effect' is slowing down air travel
2 Oct 2019. One in five Western travellers is flying less, as "flight shaming" propels people to shun air travel for the sake of the planet - according to a survey of 6,000 Americans and ...
Greta Thunberg joins hundreds marching in England to protest airport's
In this photo issued by Extinction Rebellion UK, climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in a march to Farnborough Airport in southern England, Saturday Jan. 27, 2024. Greta Thunberg joined the march to protest the use of private jets and the expansion of an airport. Hundreds of local residents and activists holding banners and placards took ...
Flight shaming hits air travel as 'Greta effect' takes off
One in five travelers is flying less as "flight shaming" propels travelers to shun air travel for the sake of the planet, according to a survey of 6,000 Western travelers.
Greta Thunberg to travel to US by boat for climate summits because she
Greta Thunberg to travel to US by boat for climate summits because she refuses to fly. Greta Thunberg says she has been offered a lift on a racing yacht from a member of Monaco's royal family.
After her North American tour ends, how is Greta Thunberg getting home
"Greta doesn't take airplanes so she'll have to get to both Chile and back to Sweden using other modes of transportation," a spokesperson for Thunberg's team told Vox. "The details are ...
Greta Thunberg: 'Activism filled my life with meaning'
For years, she has refused to travel by plane due to the enormous environmental impact that flights generate. She's vegan, she doesn't buy new clothes and she moves around her city by bicycle. ... Greta Thunberg during a press conference with climate activists from across Africa, in Stockholm, circa January 2020. TT NEWS AGENCY (Reuters)
Greta Thunberg Has Inspired Train-Bragging, and It's Becoming ...
Inspired by climate activist Greta Thunberg 's eco-conscious travel, two Swedish terms have become 2019 buzzwords: flygskam (flight shame) and tagskryt (train-bragging). "Bragging" about reducing ...
LIVE: Greta Thunberg attends global climate strike by Fridays for
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg attends a global climate strike organized by Fridays for Future in Stockholm, Sweden. #gretathunberg #environment #fridaysforfuture #climatechange #sweden #news
Greta Thunberg Charged For Ignoring Police Orders Over Climate Protests
Swedish prosecutors have charged climate campaigner Greta Thunberg with civil disobedience for ignoring police orders to leave two climate demonstrations blocking Sweden's parliament in March ...