New York (AFP)

After 15 days of crossing the Atlantic, the young muse for the climate Greta Thunberg reached the goal on Wednesday aboard her ship zero carbon emission, which was to dock in Manhattan around 15:00 local (19:00 GMT).

The 16-year-old Swedish girl aboard the Malizia II was waving at the cameras following her progress from the outskirts of Brooklyn, where the crew completed US immigration formalities, to the southern tip of the Manhattan, where the boat was to dock soon after.

"Earth, the lights of Long Island and New York in front of us," tweeted the 16-year-old Swede very early Wednesday morning, after a trip that was sometimes hectic, especially when approaching the American continent.

Under a gray sky, dozens of journalists and some 300 people were waiting on a wharf at the tip of Manhattan, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, the one that has become in a year the star of hundreds of thousands of young people.

The teenager is scheduled to attend the UN climate summit on 23 September, and the international organization has planned to host it with honors: she announced that a flotilla of 17 sailboats - one for each of the 17 objectives of the sustainable development by the UN by 2030 - would accompany her sailboat for the final stretch before her arrival in Manhattan.

- "Fridays for future" -

His arrival in New York marks the end of a journey started on August 14th. Greta Thunberg then left Plymouth, England, with her father, aboard the Malizia II, skippered by Pierre Casiraghi, son of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and German Boris Herrmann.

Now recognizable worldwide to her face and her two long braids, the teenager refused to fly because of the carbon emissions that this means of transport generates.

Pierre Casiraghi provided a boat free of charge to cover the 3,000 nautical miles (about 5,550 kilometers) separating the British coasts from the United States.

At the start of the school year 2018, when she was in her last year of high school, Greta Thunberg had decided to skip school every Friday and settle in front of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm to make members aware of the climate emergency.

Its action, quickly relayed by social networks where it is attended by over a million people, has inspired thousands of young people around the world and gave birth to the movement "Fridays for future".

She also has many detractors. In recent days, some have mocked his boat trip, claiming that several members of the crew had planned to return to Europe by plane, and that his trip would also contribute to pollute the planet.

But this kind of controversy does not seem to undermine the determination of the teenager, who is about to carry her message for the first time on the land of Donald Trump, notorious climate-skeptic.

"A year ago, I started to go on a school strike in front of the Swedish Parliament, simply because something had to be done, and since then I have continued every Friday with millions of others. it will be necessary ", she tweeted since Malizia II on August 20th.

She also plans to travel to Canada, Mexico and Chile for another UN conference in December.

© 2019 AFP