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Leonardo DiCaprio gave a speech at a UN climate summit where he acknowledged he is not an expert but a concerned citizen calling for action on climate change. He noted that climate change is no longer a fiction but is happening now through intensifying droughts, melting ice sheets, and extreme weather. DiCaprio called on governments and industries to take large-scale decisive action by putting a price on carbon emissions, eliminating subsidies for fossil fuel companies, and investing in renewable energy which is both achievable and good economic policy. He emphasized that solving the climate crisis is a human issue requiring urgent action from world leaders.

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24 views1 page

Speee CH

Leonardo DiCaprio gave a speech at a UN climate summit where he acknowledged he is not an expert but a concerned citizen calling for action on climate change. He noted that climate change is no longer a fiction but is happening now through intensifying droughts, melting ice sheets, and extreme weather. DiCaprio called on governments and industries to take large-scale decisive action by putting a price on carbon emissions, eliminating subsidies for fossil fuel companies, and investing in renewable energy which is both achievable and good economic policy. He emphasized that solving the climate crisis is a human issue requiring urgent action from world leaders.

Uploaded by

klee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Leonardo DiCaprio Climate Summit Speech

Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General, your excellencies, ladies and gentleman, and distinguished
guests. I’m honoured to be here today, I stand before you not as an expert but as a concerned
citizen, one of the 400,000 people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday, and the
billions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis.

As an actor I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems.

I believe mankind has looked at climate change in that same way: as if it were a fiction, as if
pretending that climate change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away.

But I think we know better than that. Every week, we’re seeing new and undeniable climate events,
evidence that accelerated climate change is here right now. Droughts are intensifying, our oceans
are acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather
events, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets melting at unprecedented rates, decades
ahead of scientific projections.

None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is a fact. The scientific community knows it,
industry knows it, governments know it, even the United States military knows it. The Chief of the
U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that climate change is our
single greatest security threat.

My Friends, this body – perhaps more than any other gathering in human history – now faces this
difficult, but achievable task. You can make history… or be vilified by it.

To be clear, this is not about telling people to change their light bulbs or buy a hybrid car. This
disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries,
and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action.

Now must be our moment for action.

We need to put a price tag on carbon emissions, and eliminate government subsidies for oil, coal
and gas companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the
name of a free-market economy, they do not deserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny. For
the economy itself will die if our ecosystems collapse.

The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy.

This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and a livable climate are inalienable
human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics, it is a question of our own survival.

This is the most urgent of times, and the most urgent of messages.

Honoured delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living. But you do not.

The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world and the momentum will not stop.
But now it is YOUR turn, the time to answer humankind’s greatest challenge is now.

We beg of you to face it with courage. And honesty. Thank you.

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