Actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has said he is “starstruck” by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, is loaning his electric vehicle to the teen so she can travel to Canada for a protest without relying on fossil fuel-powered transportation.
Thunberg first announced Schwarzenegger’s offer to share his electric Hummer on a Swedish talk show, where she said it was “one of the funniest” offers of help she has received since coming to New York City last month to demonstrate with young climate change zealots and speak at the United Nations climate summit last week.
The talk show has confirmed to Newsweek the arrangement between Schwarzenegger and Thunberg.
Thunberg will travel in the vehicle with her father to Montreal so she can take part in a climate change protest next Friday. Thunberg, 16, launched the Fridays for Future school walkout movement about a year ago and gained international attention for a speech at the 2018 U.N. climate summit.
She sailed to New York from Europe in August in a racing yacht to avoid air travel, although the boat crew’s flight back and forth from Europe to the U.S. has been cited as a bigger source of pollution than her flying on her own.
CBS reported on Schwarzenegger’s electric car ambitions and his admiration for Thunberg:
In 2017, Schwarzenegger partnered with electric mobility company Kreisel to develop an electric Hummer. CBS News has reached out to reps for Schwarzenegger for more details about his offer to lend the car to Thunberg.
The teen will continue her climate crusade in Montreal, and we may just see her cruising there in an electric Hummer.
This is not the first time Schwarzenegger has showed support for Thunberg. In 2018, the actor-turned-politician tweeted about how Thunberg inspired him. The two finally met in May 2019 at a climate conference in Austria. Schwarzenegger shared a photo of himself with Thunberg, saying he was “starstruck.”
Thunberg is taking a year off from high school to travel around the United States and Canada before heading to Chile in December to speak at yet another U.N. climate change summit.
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