Who Is Naomi Seibt? CPAC Speaker Is A German Teenage 'Climate Skeptic' Paid By Right-Wing Think Tank

“Climate skeptic” Naomi Seibt, 19, is expected to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this week, with the German teenager often compared to Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

Yet unlike Thunberg, Seibt is not calling for world governments to do more to combat climate change. Instead, Seibt has spoken out against “climate change alarmism,” calling it a “despicably anti-human ideology.”

Seibt is employed by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute think tank, an organization that has ties with the Trump administration. In addition to pushing climate change denial, the group lobbied against tobacco regulation in the 1990s and has downplayed the significant health risks of smoking.

“I have good news for you. The world is not ending because of climate change,” Seibt says in a Heartland Institute video. "People are being force-fed a very dystopian agenda of climate alarmism that tells us that we as humans are destroying the planet and that we, the young people especially, have no future."

Seibt is from the western German city of Munster. Her mother, a lawyer, has represented politicians from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in court. Seibt has denied any connections with the AfD.

Seibt’s rise comes as Thunberg’s climate justice movement has attracted media attention and praise from international organizations. Thunberg, 17, has called for students around the world to skip school in order to demonstrate for action on climate change, with the strikes dubbed “Fridays for Future.” Thunberg attended the U.N. Climate Action Summit in September and has been named Time’s Person of the Year for 2019.

There is a strong international consensus among scientists that climate change is a real phenomenon, and that it is caused by human activities.