This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
At the end of a two-day visit to Capitol Hill, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, had a directive for members of Congress: “Wake up.”
“This is not the time and place for dreams, this is the time to wake up. This is the moment in history we need to be wide awake,” Thunberg said in a speech Wednesday night before members of Congress in the House Ways and Means Committee. “This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced, you cannot solve a crisis without treating it as one. Stop telling people that everything will be fine. As it looks now, everything won’t be fine.”
The stern words reflected Thunberg’s sense, after several meetings with politicians, that too much apathy still pervades US climate politics. “If it continues like that we’re not going to get anywhere, actually transform words into action — the action we need now,” she said.
On her first trip to Washington as the most high-profile climate activist in history, Thunberg saw firsthand a divided government, where Republicans, who have shown little appetite for climate action, control the White House and Senate, and Democrats control the House.
Across the Atlantic, the diminutive but powerful teenager has used her skills of shaming adults to secure commitments from leaders in Britain, Germany, and the EU to accelerate efforts to decarbonize their countries. As part of her efforts to do the same in the US, she and other youth activists from groups including Zero Hour and the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Wednesday and presented a set of demands, including a call to support a Green New Deal. Youth climate activists also met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
“[Pelosi] was really very, very supportive of what we were asking her to do,” Zero Hour activist Anaiah Thomas. “Sometimes you feel like when you’re talking to politicians you feel like they don’t hear you, but the Speaker listened to us, she gave us time to respond.”
A Pelosi spokesman told Vox the speaker’s meeting with activists was lengthy and ran over the allotted time, as she wanted to hear from each of the 25 or so activists there.
“She is in general agreement with their principles,” the spokesman said. The spokesman added that while she does not support the Green New Deal, Pelosi considers it an important organizing tool for youth.
While Thunberg met with former President Barack Obama, she did not meet with President Donald Trump, who is a climate denier, or other Republican leaders. Instead, Thunberg and others protested outside the White House.
While her pressure in Washington may not yield immediate policy results as it has in Europe, her visit is still critical. It’s demonstrating the power of the massive social movement on climate she’s helped build — a movement that’s likely to grow stronger with time.
Can Thunberg spur American politicians to action?
Climate experts told Vox the effectiveness of Greta and US-based activist groups like the Sunrise Movement hasn’t been a magical power to convince politicians to suddenly treat climate change as an emergency; it’s been shifting the entire conversation so Democrats and Republicans alike have to contend with the strength of youth activists.
“I think that both in Europe and here in the US, figures like Greta or really any major figures in the environmental movement have not been effective yet at converting people outright, but they’ve been very effective at social movement pressure,” said Matto Mildenberger, assistant professor of environmental science at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Mildenberger told Vox he was skeptical Thunberg’s visit to Capitol Hill would win over congressional Republicans who deny climate change is a crisis. But he said it would help increase climate change’s profile within the Democratic Party, which could increase pressure on Republicans as well.
That dynamic was apparent during a Thursday morning congressional hearing featuring Thunberg as well as Benji Backer, the founder of the American Conservation Coalition — a group for young conservatives concerned about climate change.
“Climate science is real. It’s not a hoax,” Backer said, addressing President Trump in his congressional testimony. “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.”
Backer’s comments speak to a key difference between how climate change is viewed in the US and Europe: climate skeptics in the US have been more effective at muddling the messaging and stalling the urgency around global warming. Case in point: A climate denier who once said the “concept” of global warming was “created by the Chinese” is sitting in the White House, doing everything in his power to roll back US environmental regulations. While there are certainly climate skeptics in Europe, there is more widespread acceptance of climate science, especially among politicians.
“In the US, we have to overcome entrenched climate denial from big polluters,” said Leah Stokes, a political science professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, who studies environmental movements. “You need organizing, you need a social movement. It’s going to be a much longer game to make a dent in the stronghold that polluters have over our federal government.”
That social movement was growing in the US well before Thunberg’s visit.
Beyond Greta, there’s a massive and growing youth climate movement in the US
The last year has seen a wave of climate activism in the US, propelled largely by young activists in their teens and 20s. And unlike Thunberg, who urges politicians to listen to the science and not let climate get bogged down by politics, these groups are using overtly political tactics.
“Greta’s trying to be a figure that inspires everybody without any partisan leanings,” said Julian Brave NoiseCat, director of Green New Deal strategy at progressive think tank Data for Progress. “There are ways in which the Sunrise Movement is taking on the Democratic party in a major way [and] is taking on politicians who are backed by the fossil fuel lobby in a major way.”
Groups like Sunrise Movement are putting extreme pressure on the Democratic Party to do something because they realize Democrats are the most sympathetic to their cause. Sunrise leaders estimate that 15,000 people largely in their teens and 20s have shown up to in-person climate actions across the country and that 80,000 have participated in less direct actions, such as emailing and calling their representatives. As of this month, the group has 290 small, autonomous chapters of activists (called “hubs”) across the country, a huge jump from the 11 hubs they had in November 2018.
Already, the group’s assertive tactics have forced climate change and the Green New Deal to become defining issues of the 2020 election. After protests and public pressure from young activists, Democrats running for president have released serious detailed plans to drastically cut America’s fossil fuel emissions. And while Republicans talk about the Green New Deal in terms of socialism, they are still talking about it.
Sunrise’s ultimate goal is to help elect a Democratic president and Senate and then assert even greater public pressure to get sweeping climate legislation passed. It’s an ambitious five-year plan, and Friday’s global climate strikes are a big part of their plan to force politicians to act.
“Friday is about putting the entire political establishment on notice that our generation energized and mobilized, and we’re watching you,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement. “It’s going to send the message that this movement is growing, that young people in the US are coming together by the hundreds of thousands — millions, to make clear that if politicians want our generation’s support, they need to treat this crisis like the emergency that it is.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story said a meeting between Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and youth activists didn’t happen. Schumer met with them on Tuesday.
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