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People's Climate March: Leonardo DiCaprio and other stars join thousands in rally against Donald Trump

Protesters accused President of not agreeing with scientific consensus about risks to the environment

Rachael Revesz
Sunday 30 April 2017 12:31 BST
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Thousands marched in the capital and across the US, demanding a clean environment
Thousands marched in the capital and across the US, demanding a clean environment (Getty)

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Leonardo DiCaprio and former Vice President Al Gore were just two famous faces among the thousands of people who attended the Climate March in Washington DC amid growing concern over the President's environmental policies.

Photos posted to social media captured actor DiCaprio marching alongside Gore, holding a sign that read “Climate Change Is Real”.

Both men are outspoken critics of the administration’s scepticism of climate change, and they have spent years campaigning for the environment, including at the United Nations.

Gore is reportedly working on a sequel to his 2006 documentary about global warming.

Thousands of people attended the march in the capital on the same day that President Trump was celebrating his 100th day in office – a day which he described to the Associated Press as an “artificial barrier”.

Mr Trump admitted to the New York Times in January that there might be "some connectivity" between humans and climate change, four years after he said that it was a "hoax" invented by the Chinese.

Yet in 2017 after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, it was clear that China was taking a lead on climate change while Mr Trump vowed to bring coal jobs back.

In the following months after the election the President did little to reassure those who were concerned about his lack of focus on the environment.

He appointed former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, a climate change sceptic who lobbied against the Environmental Protection Agency, to lead the same agency. The climate change page on the EPA website has since been taken down.

Mr Pruitt rolled back regulations which protect the environment and the administration said it would end the “war on coal”, despite the industry employing far fewer Americans than tourism or renewable energy.

The US has also threatened to pull out of the landmark UN Paris Climate Change Agreement, and iis pressing ahead with the controversial oil Keystone XL pipeline, which threatens the water supply of a large Native American reservation and prompted massive grassroots protests during the Obama administration.

Fox News destroyed EPA chief Scott Pruitt over climate change

On the day of his Inauguration, Mr Trump pulled in the head of the National Park Service and imposed a social media blackout, including tweets and posts that mentioned climate change. Rogue NPS twitter accounts popped up to keep highlighting the issues.

On the campaign trail, Mr Trump claimed that wind power was expensive and was “killing all the eagles” in California.

“Having said that I support all forms of energy,” he told a crowd in North Dakota last May.

His stance on the environment was clear before he took office. In recent years, he took out paid adverts in local newspapers in Scotland to campaign against wind farms near his golf resort, but he lost the battle against offshore wind turbines in court.

Asides from climate change, Mr Trump’s government has prompted multiple mass movements in the US and across the world.

It started with millions of people - men and women - marching against his negative record on women’s rights, as well as large-scale protests against his attempt to ban Muslims from seven countries and his failure to release his tax returns.

The President has accused protesters of being “paid” and “professional”, and claimed they were organised by his rivals and billionaire investor George Soros.

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