British actress Emma Thompson has targeted Prime Minister Tony Abbott as part of a campaign to protect the Arctic from global warming.
The Academy Award winner is pictured atop the Smeerenburg glacier holding a placard that reads: “Tony Abbott climate change is real, I’m standing on it!”
Ms Thompson and her 14-year-old daughter, Gaia, are travelling in the Arctic alongside Greenpeace in an effort to encourage government leaders to take action on climate change and protect the North Pole.
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If tens of millions of us just wrote to our leaders demanding action on the Arctic and climate change, well – that could change everything
Emma Thompson, British actress and Academy-award winner
“Most of us want to live cleaner lives, but our governments don’t make these things easily available,” Ms Thompson wrote in a blog post published on the Greenpeace website.
“Bear in mind that politicians often lose sight of issues that aren’t in front of them all the time. They can end up ignoring even something like climate change, which is possibly the most pressing challenge of our time.”
Mr Abbott has previously referred to climate change as “crap”. Last month his government repealed the carbon tax, making Australia the first country in the world to abolish a price on carbon.
US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Russian leader Vladimir Putin also received personalised messages.
Ms Thompson, a vocal climate change and humanitarian activist, is imploring people to “be bold” and put pressure on their political leaders to address global warming.
“Attend a rally, write to your local leaders,” she wrote. “If tens of millions of us just wrote to our leaders demanding action on the Arctic and climate change, well – that could change everything.”
Ms Thompson is endorsing a “Save the Arctic” online petition which has already amassed more then five million signatures.
