Greta Thunberg tells Congress to 'listen to the scientists' during testimony – live

If you like the sound of Medicare for All, the Bernie Sanders campaign for the 2020 election has a new one for you: Housing for All.
Sanders has just announced a housing proposal that the campaign is touting as the “boldest and most comprehensive plan to end the housing crisis in America.”

The plan would build nearly 10 million homes, fully fund tenant-based Section 8 government rental assistance at $410bn over the next 10 years, and enact a national cap on annual rent increases, among other measures, my national affairs correspondent colleague Tom McCarthy writes.

It would also end the mass sale of mortgages “to Wall Street vulture funds” and increase regulation of mortgage markets.
The plan would cost $2.5tn over a decade, the Sanders camp estimates, to be paid for by a “wealth tax” on American fortunes in the top one-tenth of one percent.

“There is virtually no place in America where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a decent two bedroom apartment. At a time when half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, this is unacceptable,” said Sanders in a statement.

The United States faces a shortage of 7.4m affordable homes for the lowest-income renters and more than 18m families in America are paying more than half of their limited incomes on housing and utilities, according to figures provided by the Sanders camp.

Hearing summary and quick analysis

A spare, rather genteel hearing for Greta Thunberg in Congress. Both Republican and Democrat members praised the young Swedish climate activist and universally agreed that the climate crisis was an issue that needed to be addressed, Guardian environment reporter Ollie Milman writes.

You can see why young activists have grasped the public imagination rather than lawmakers, however. Thunberg and those seated next to her – Jamie Margolin and Vic Barrett – spoke of choking wildfires, flooding and existential dread. “It’s devastating and scary and also feels like we’ve been betrayed,” Margolin said. “It’s shameful and cowardly to not take action.”

Members of Congress, meanwhile, spoke of the economy and energy innovation and the benefits of capitalism in growing and selling tomatoes. Not really the stuff of angry rallies. At one point a bemused Thunberg was asked about the national security dimension of the climate crisis.

Lawmakers have, at least, apparently realized that there’s a generation that won’t be easily mollified on the climate crisis. It remains to be seen if they will actually do enough to salve their anger in time to avert the worst ravages of this emergency.

Climate hearing wraps up

As the congressional hearing on climate change ends, the young activists file out of the committee room. We’ll have a wrap up summary and assessment for you shortly.

Meanwhile, my environment reporter colleague, Oliver Milman writes:

Interesting approach here from Republicans, with no hostility towards Greta Thunberg or the other young speakers. They have all acknowledged the existence of the climate crisis, with Representative Garrett Graves (Republican of Louisiana) even stating that “we need to take aggressive action” to address it.

This shows a shift in approach from blanket denial of the science. Instead, there’s a more nuanced pitch whereby we are faced with a problem - but China is the main one making things worse.

China is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, pushing the US into second place, with recent data showing the country’s emissions have increased 50% since 2005.

In one exchange, Graves asked Greta Thunberg what she’d do if she was on the boat she used to cross the Atlantic Ocean to the US on her current visit, and saw another boat throwing five pieces of trash into the sea for every one piece she was able to pick up (the boat in this analogy is China, making more pollution, trash and climate changing emissions than anyone else, including those trying to address the crisis).

Thunberg appeared a little bemused at all this, and pointed out that her yacht was going so fast they couldn’t pick up trash as they went.

But she quickly grasped the analogy, and shot back: “I am from Sweden, a small country, and it’s the same argument, ‘Why should we do something - look at the US?’ It’s being used against you as well.”

Nothing needs to be added.

Okay, we’ll add a pic of Hillary.

“To President Trump: climate change is real” - conservative

Another of the young activists giving testimony before Congress this morning is Benjy Backer, a besuited 21-year-old student at the University of Washington, in Seattle, who described himself as a conservative.

Backer founded the American Conservation Coalition, a conservative group that advocates for environmental policies. Here’s an article featuring him in the New York Times last month.

He told the paper that he was “encouraged by Donald Trump’s environmental speech on July 8 as well as recent moves among some Republicans in Congress to advance climate policies. But he also said changes were not occurring fast enough to lure his generation of environmentally conscious conservatives.”

Backer said before the committee this morning that he wanted to say “to President Trump - climate change is real. It’s not a hoax.”

He later said he was actually optimistic about the potential to avert a global climate catastrophe.

“We have time, science says so,” he said. “We have a chance to come together and work across party lines, so I feel hopeful.”

Trump described climate change as a hoax dreamed up by China, during the 2016 presidential election. He’s also called it “very expensive bullshit”.

In 2018 Trump said it wasn’t a hoax but wasn’t a lasting threat, would change back and wasn’t human-caused.

Do lawmakers keep calling Greta Thunberg “Miss Toonberry”?

What’s with that? Am I hearing things? The second member on the committee now holding its climate change hearing on Capitol Hill has now addressed Swedish 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg as “Toonberry”.

Her last name is pronounced Toonberg, as far as I’m aware. Do feel free to tweet me if I’m hearing things, because it sounded crystal clear to me from the excellent live feed....

Young climate activist Vic Barrett just gave opening remarks, warning of rising seas, in particular as a result of climate change.

Barrett is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit, Juliana v the US, that charges the federal government with violating the constitutional rights of youth by perpetuating systems that contribute to climate breakdown.

Those young people – who range in age from 11 to 23 and hail from all corners of the nation – argue that the constitution gives them and future generations a right to an environment free of climate catastrophe.

“Planet is collapsing”

American youth activist Jamie Margolin has come steaming in with her prepared opening statement. She is suing her state, Washington, over climate change.

“People who say we have a great future ahead are lying to my face,” she told the congressional hearing.

She points out that the destruction already seen in the world from the climate crisis “will get worse” and her generation is being left a terrible legacy.

“The government cannot even begin to imagine the size of the political shift that needs to happen to act on the climate crisis, she says. “The youth are calling for a new era altogether...we only have a few months left to transfer to a renewable energy economy. People call my generation Generation Z as if we are the last generation, but we are not, we are the GND Generation - the green new deal generation,” she said.

Greta: I have not come to offer prepared remarks

“I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists and I want you to unite behind the science,” she said

“Burning fossil fuels is warming the planet...we must do more”

Florida Democrat Kathy Castor just mentioned that the first congressional hearing on climate change took place in 1988.

Imagine how far along efforts to combat climate change would be by now if Congress and the US had acted strongly then.

Maybe we wouldn’t now be talking about a climate crisis or a climate emergency.

To those still doubting, Castor said: “Burning fossil fuels is warming the planet and altering the world’s climate.”

But she said, the US and the world have the solutions to avert dangerous global heating.

“We can do this,” she said, while acknowledging that “a strong action plan has been missing” in the US.

That might seem like a funny headline, but as we know, it’s far from a given when you’re talking about Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, and a rare Republican in Congress who will go after Donald Trump on Twitter when he feels sufficiently moved, just opened his remarks to the climate hearing with these words: “Climate change is real.”

He said that the US needs to reduce its carbon emissions but also it was important to take action on that around the world.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg is about to testify to Congress, at a joint hearing before the House foreign affairs subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, energy and the environment and the House select committee on the climate crisis.

Our politics reporter Lauren Gambino is on the hill and our environment reporter Oliver Milman is watching and will give us more context on climate science and the wider environmental debate. (Lauren covered Corey Lewandowski’s hearing yesterday, Greta Thunberg today, what a contrast.)

Ollie just tweeted this:

Greta’s coming up, but so is Jay

The US federal reserve is preparing to cut interest rates by a quarter
of a percent later today, to between 1.75% and 2%, at the conclusion of
its September meeting, according to multiple reports, Edward Helmore writes.

Following the meeting, at 2.30pm ET, economists will be watching closely
for signals from Fed chair Jerome Powell (aka Jay) that the central bank is
likely to continue cutting rates again this year.

Officials have pointed to weakening global industrial output and
continuing uncertainty around trade policy, particularly between the
US and China, as key to their thinking.

At the Fed’s last meeting in July, Powell described the rate cut as a
“mid cycle adjustment,” meaning it was not part of a larger rate
cutting cycle.

Just keeping the seat warm?

There was no doubt that the US needed a new national security adviser FAST after the abrupt ousting of John Bolton last week.

It’s the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, when major world leaders descend. And the tension in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and Iran could be cut with a sword.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo might like the naming of Robert O’Brien this morning to the post - it will be seen as less an addition to a top team of rivals jostling for Trump’s ear as the appointment of more of a functionary, perhaps, dare one say it, to make sure there’s someone on the bridge.

Trump didn’t say O’Brien would be acting national security adviser, however, which is one of his favorite tactics for keeping would-be permanent senior cabinet members on their toes but, one assumes, ultra loyal (not to say a tad submissive).

It wasn’t a secret that Pompeo and Bolton were prone to clashing.

O’Brien’s most recent high-profile mission, as the US special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, was to be sent to Stockholm to monitor the court proceedings of the American rapper A$AP Rocky. Nuff said.

To catch you up, a Stockholm court last month found A$AP Rocky guilty of assault but spared him prison in a case that outraged the US rapper’s fans and sparked a diplomatic row when Trump questioned the fairness of Sweden’s judicial system.

Donald Trump just made another major announcement, via Twitter.

The president fired his previous national security adviser John Bolton last week.

The president has fired off his latest shot across the bows of Iran. He hasn’t given any detail yet, which presumably means he thinks it speaks for itself via his foreign policy brand – Twitter diplomacy.

It’s the latest rumble in the row over US accusations that Iran was behind the weekend drone attack on Saudi oil facilities that reduced the Middle Eastern kingdom’s output.

Earlier today the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, described American claims that Tehran was involved in the devastating attack on the Saudi Arabian petroleum facilities as slanderous and simply part of Washington’s continuing campaign to isolate and put pressure on Iran, my colleague in London, Patrick Wintour, writes. You can read his latest report on this here.

Good morning, US politics watchers, there’s a packed day ahead, welcome to your online front row seat for all the drama, live.

• Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg is testifying in the US Congress today, with leading US youth activists. We’ll have a live feed when the hearing starts, at 10AM ET (3PM BST). Her appearance comes a day after she told Congress, at a special event yesterday, that she didn’t want praise, that it was about the science and said on action to combat the climate crisis: “You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry.” The Guardian’s politics reporter Lauren Gambino will be at the hearing.
• Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and military veterans will hold press conference this morning about a “bombshell” report from Vietnam Veterans of America revealing “that pro-Trump foreign interference in the 2020 election has begun”.
  
• Donald Trump is in California for fundraisers and will visit the southern border later, a day after he moved to end the state’s authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards and bar states from establishing their own regulations. This from the man who says he values clean air. Stay tuned.