Days after Leonardo DiCaprio ripped into Big Oil at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called out the star for what he called “inflamed rhetoric.”
“I pointed out that both Alberta and Canada have new governments over the past year that are committed to action on climate change, committed to engaging with the emissions causing climate change in a responsible way,” Trudeau told reporters Friday.
“And that there are families suffering and out of work who need to be supported, and inflamed rhetoric doesn’t necessarily help either the families–or help Canada–achieve its significant carbon reduction targets.”
READ MORE: Reaction to Alberta’s ‘ambitious’ climate change plan
The Hollywood star of Alberta-shot “The Revenant” had made a plea to business leaders to help battle climate change while announcing his foundation was donating another $15 million to environmental projects.
“We simply cannot allow the corporate greed of the coal, oil and gas industries to determine the future of humanity,” DiCaprio said Tuesday, as he was honoured for his work on climate change. “Those entities with a financial interest in preserving this destructive system have denied and even covered up the evidence of our changing climate.”
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“Enough is enough. You know better. The world knows better. History will place the blame for this devastation squarely at their feet.”
Trudeau said his conversation with DiCaprio ended on a positive note.
“He actually said that if we really took concrete action on climate change, he’d be the first to come up and celebrate us for it.”
DiCaprio’s past spent travelling the world on “fuel-guzzling private jets and giant, diesel-fired yachts” has been highlighted as hypocritical in recent media reports.
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“To give your ‘we will surely perish’ speech in front the UN just a couple of months after you’d been seen partying on the Sheikh’s giant CO2-generating monster-yacht, is… well… truly Oscar material,” Cody Battershill, a Calgary realtor and founder of CanadaAction.ca, wrote in a blog published in the Huffington Post Wednesday.
With files from The Associated Press
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