Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, got emotional during a climate change forum.
“I speak to you not as an elected official or a public figure, but I speak to you as a human being,” she said while choking up at the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen on Friday. “A woman whose dreams of motherhood now taste bittersweet, because of what I know about our children’s future.”
Ocasio-Cortez, 29, further blamed climate change for several natural disasters, including hurricanes that have recently affected Puerto Rico.
“I speak to you as a daughter and descendant of colonized peoples who have already begun to suffer,” she said. “Just two years ago, one of the deadliest disasters in the United States struck in the form of Hurricane Maria … The climate change-powered storm killed over 3,000 Puerto Ricans, American citizens — my own grandfather died in the aftermath — all because they were living under colonial rule, which contributed to the dire conditions and lack of recovery.”
The freshman Democrat traveled to the meeting with the C40, a group of 94 mayors led by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti who want a global version of her Green New Deal.
