Video: Leonardo DiCaprio Speaks up for the Planet at UN Climate Summit | Oceana
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September 26, 2014

Video: Leonardo DiCaprio Speaks up for the Planet at UN Climate Summit

 

Earlier this week, actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio addressed world leaders at the opening of the UN Climate Summit about climate change. His moving speech noted that clear evidence of climate change is in effect, ranging from shifting weather patterns to acidifying oceans, and urged these leaders to step up and take action before it’s too late.

“None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact. The scientific community knows it, industry and 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,” DiCaprio said. “My Friends, this body, perhaps more than any other gathering in human history, now faces that difficult task. You can make history, or be vilified by it.”

DiCaprio has long been an environmental advocate. Earlier this year, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation donated $3 million to Oceana to help expand its efforts. At U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s Our Ocean conference this past summer, DiCaprio announced his intention to help fight seafood fraud, as well as pledging $7 million through his Foundation for marine conservation.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently appointed DiCaprio as a UN Messenger of Peace. The UN Climate Summit, the largest climate meeting since 2009, comes ahead of a 2015 climate conference in Paris.

Click here to watch DiCaprio’s moving speech at the UN Climate Summit: