Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg testified before the US Congress Wednesday and urged lawmakers to "take real action" in fighting climate change, Deutsche Welle reports.

Forgoing a prepared opening statement, Thunberg instead submitted the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which calls for unprecedented measures to be taken in order to keep temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by 2030.

"I don't want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists," Thunberg told the joint hearing of the House Climate Crisis Committee and a foreign affairs subcommittee. 

"I want you to then unite behind the science — and then I want you to take real action," she said. 

Thunberg was invited to the hearing along with three other young climate activists in order to provide the committees with the next generation's perspective on climate change.

Sixteen-year-old Thunberg also criticized the US for being the "biggest carbon polluter in history" and the top producer of oil.

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

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