Culture

Leonardo DiCaprio Just Gave A Killer Speech At The UN Climate Change Summit

"We can make history, or be vilified by it."

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The largest summit on climate change ever held is taking place in New York right now; leaders from 125 countries are meeting at the United Nations headquarters to outline what they’re doing to combat carbon emissions to try and prevent catastrophic global warming.

To coincide with the talks, 400,000 people — that’s not a typo — marched in the streets of New York to demand radical and swift action on climate change, in the largest climate protest in history. They were joined by hundreds of thousands more around the world, including tens of thousands in Australia.

It’s against this background that actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a noted environmental activist when he is not defying you, stars, was invited to give a speech to assembled delegates at the UN convention. He took the whole thing very seriously — he even joined Instagram for the occasion — and it’s fair to say he knocked it out of the park.

DiCaprio called on governments to “put a pricetag on carbon emissions, and eliminate government subsidies for coal, gas, and oil companies”. At this point it’s good to remember that old mate Tony Abbott, who has done the exact opposite of both those things, is deliberately not attending the conference despite being scheduled to arrive in New York a day after it finishes. Hopefully Leo and his incredible facial hair go have a chat to him.

Feature image via Instagram/Leonardodicaprio.