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Leonardo DiCaprio meets with Donald Trump to talk green jobs

DiCaprio... has met with president-elect Donald Trump - Credit: AP
DiCaprio… has met with president-elect Donald Trump – Credit: AP

Leonardo DiCaprio may have said that Donald Trump should ‘not be allowed to hold public office’ prior to the US election, but he now appears to have accepted the outcome.

He met with the president-elect yesterday to talk about how renewable energy could potentially create millions of jobs.

Terry Tamminen, the CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF), confirmed the meeting to the Associated Press.

“Today, we presented the president-elect and his advisors with a framework – which LDF developed in consultation with leading voices in the fields of economics and environmentalism – that details how to unleash a major economic revival across the United States that is centred on investments in sustainable infrastructure,” he said in a statement.

“Our conversation focused on how to create millions of secure, American jobs in the construction and operation of commercial and residential clean, renewable energy generation.

“The president-elect expressed his desire for a follow-up meeting in January, and we look forward to continuing the conversation with the incoming administration as we work to stop the dangerous march of climate change, while putting millions of people to work at the same time.”

They gave the presentation to both Trump, who has also denied the existence of climate change, calling it a ‘hoax’ created by China, and his daughter Ivanka.

(Credit: Ratpac Films)
(Credit: Ratpac Films)

DiCaprio is also said to have passed a copy of his new climate change documentary ‘Before The Flood’ to Ivanka.

The visit came after Trump hired Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma, to head up the Environmental Protection Agency.

Pruitt is a known climate change sceptic, having said earlier this year: “That debate is far from settled.

(Credit: Getty)
(Credit: Getty)

“Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.”

Pruitt’s appointment has been met with consternation among environmentalists.

“Having Scott Pruitt in charge of the US Environmental Protection Agency is like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires,” said Michael Brune, the executive director of the environmental organisation the Sierra Club.

“He is a climate science denier who, as attorney general for the state of Oklahoma, regularly conspired with the fossil fuel industry to attack EPA regulations. Nothing less than our children’s health is at stake.”

(Credit: AFP)
(Credit: AFP)

Al Gore has also met with Trump this week to discuss the matter, in the hope of changing his mind.

“I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect,” Gore said after the meeting. “It was a sincere search for areas of common ground,” he said, adding that the conversation was ‘to be continued’.

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