‘Listen to the scientists’: Climate activist Greta Thunberg issues plea to US Congress

Ms Thunberg will speak before the United Nations in New York about climate change next week

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, had a simple message for the US Congress when she testified before them: listen to the scientists and do your homework.

In lieu of providing prepared remarks for a hearing on Wednesday, Ms Thunberg – who has skyrocketed to activist fame since she started school strikes to demand climate action last year – simply sent along a copy of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on global warming.

“I am submitting this report as my testimony because I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists,” she said during the hearing.

She continued: “And I want you to unite behind the science. And then I want you to take real action.”

Ms Thunberg arrived in the US on a carbon emission free yacht last month, after refusing to travel by plane because of the carbon cost of that form of transport.

She is set to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit on 23 September, and to lead a school strike on Friday in New York.

She’s expected to travel to South America later this year for yet another climate change conference. She says that she does not plan on boarding a plane for that trip, either.