Stranger Things

Monaco Prince Will Help Greta Thunberg Get to U.N. Conference on Carbon-Free Eco Yacht

Pierre Casiraghi says he is not here to change the world, but if he can offer carbon-free transport on his gleaming eco yacht, he is happy to help.

Anxious, perhaps, to avoid the opprobrium heaped on the heads of recent private jet-enabled attendees at the Google Camp conference on sustainability such as Prince Harry, schoolgirl climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, previously announced that she would travel to the UN Climate Action Summit in New York on a zero-emissions sailing boat belonging to Pierre Casiraghi, 31, nephew of Prince Albert of Monaco.

Now, in an interview with U.K. newspaper The Times, Casiraghi says it will take the unlikely pair (who will also be accompanied by Thunberg's father) more than two weeks to cross the Atlantic in the Malizia II, a monohull racing boat that was recently upgraded to be carbon neutral.

The boat generates and stores the small amounts of electricity needed for essential functions (in addition to natural wind power) using on-board turbines.

“We are probably one of the few boats in the world that is totally zero fossil fuel,” Casiraghi told The Times.

Being on the boat, which can travel at up to 40mph, “is a bit like being on a rollercoaster,” he says.

His father, Stefano Casiraghi, a financier and the second husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco (the daughter of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly) was killed when a powerboat he was racing flipped during a race off the coast of Monaco. Pierre was three at the time.

Casiraghi says he has seen, “a significant reduction in the number of fish in the Mediterranean, which I’ve been swimming in since I was a child.”

Perhaps anxious to avoid accusations of hypocrisy for his carbon-rich lifestyle, Casiraghi, who is a shareholder in a helicopter company, told The Times that he wasn't “here to advocate change or how to do things ... I'm just transporting Greta. And it was just a way to help her get across. We had a zero-emission boat. It’s very simple.”

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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