The House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Select Committee on the Climate Crisis are holding a joint hearing on Wednesday billed as “Voices Leading the Next Generation on the Global Climate Crisis” and will feature the testimony of Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swede who starting a global school walkout movement, Fridays for Future.
Thunberg, who has said her struggle with Asperger’s syndrome inspired her activism, traveled to the U.S. last month on a racing yacht to prevent making a “carbon footprint” by flying here from Europe.
Also parting ways with traditionally prepared testimony submitted to Congress ahead of hearings, Thunberg instead gave the committee the United Nation’s IPCC Special Report on Global Warming released in October of 2018.
“I am submitting this report as my testimony because I don’t want you to listen to me,” Thunberg said in a brief document accompanying the report. “I want you to listen to the scientists. And I want you to unite behind the science.”
“And then I want you to take action,” Thunberg wrote.
Watch Thunberg’s opening statement:
Other young people who will be testifying include Jamie Margolin, co-founder of This is Zero Hour; Vic Barrett, a fellow at the Alliance for Climate Education; and Benji Backer, a conservative activist and president of the American Conservation Coalition.
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