The Swedish teen activist tells US politicians to ‘listen to scientists’ and enact strong measures on climate change.

Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who has inspired a global movement for climate change, delivered a strong message to members of Congress in the United States on Wednesday: “Wake up.”

Wrapping up a six-day visit to Washington, DC, the 16-year-old Thunberg rallied a room full of Democratic politicians and activists, urging them to follow scientific warnings and push for strong measures to combat climate change.

“This is not the time and place for dreams. This is the time to wake up,” Thunberg said behind a lowered podium at the ornate House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee room.

Thunberg spent the day in Congress and on the steps of the Supreme Court, lending her star power to join US and youth activists who were drumming up attention and support before a global climate strike on Friday.

I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists. Greta Thunberg

She began with a pointed message before a US congressional hearing: “I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists.”

Thunberg, founder of the “Fridays For Future” weekly school walkouts to demand government climate-change action, submitted a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the hearing in lieu of testimony. It urged rapid, unprecedented changes to the way people live in order to keep temperatures from rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by 2030.

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“People, in general, don’t seem to be aware of how severe the crisis” is, Thunberg said, urging politicians to “unite behind the science” and take action, saying that people need to treat climate change “like the existential crisis it is.”

Thunberg was one of four students invited to a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy and the Environment and the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, to provide the next generation’s views on climate change.

LIVE: Teenage climate activist @GretaThunberg testifies at a US congressional hearing on 'Voices Leading the Next Generation on the Global Climate Crisis.' https://t.co/xQdPZJ0r2e — Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) September 18, 2019

‘Biggest carbon polluter’

Her first appearance took place last Friday in front of the White House, where she encouraged fellow young activists to keep fighting to be heard. She did not mention President Donald Trump, a climate change denier who moved to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Change Agreement early in his tenure, in her remarks.

On Wednesday, she called out the US for being the “biggest carbon polluter in history” and the top producer of oil.

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“And yet you are also the only nation in the world who has signalled with strong intention to leave the Paris agreement because it was a bad deal for the US,” she said.

Trump earlier in the day announced plans to revoke California’s ability to set emissions standards for vehicles that are more stringent than the federal standards – the latest move in his administration’s multi-pronged attack on California’s efforts to reduce vehicle emissions, which could slow the deployment of electric and more efficient vehicles.

Youth-led protesters demonstrate in front of the United Nations (UN) in support of measures to stop climate change [File: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP]

A conservative climate-change advocate at Wednesday’s hearing, 21-year-old Benji Backer from Wisconsin, told politicians that young conservatives also favour climate change action, but through an approach focused on technology and allowing the continued use of fossil fuels. “As a proud American, as a life-long conservative and as a young person, I urge you to accept climate change for the reality it is and respond accordingly. We need your leadership,” he said.

Backer praised Thunberg and other climate activists for putting the issue at the forefront of politics but said there was time to take more measured action.

In addition to meetings on Capitol Hill, Thunberg met former President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Obama described the teenager on Twitter as “already one of the planet’s greatest advocates.”

Though Thunberg mostly addressed admiring Democratic politicians, she also spoke to some Republican politicians at the House hearing.

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Republican representatives praised the students for raising awareness about climate change but disagreed over what action the US should take when emerging economies continue to emit greenhouse gases as their economies grow.

Representative Garret Graves from Louisiana said his state was affected by rising sea levels and that he supported the US emission reduction target enshrined in the Paris Climate Agreement, but he criticised the pact for how it treated emerging economies such as China.

“I think that signing on to an agreement … that allows for China to have a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2030 is inappropriate,” he said.

Thunberg responded that in her home country, Sweden, people similarly criticise the US for not taking enough action. “The same argument is being used against you,” she said.