Passionate climate change activist and recent Oscar award winner Leonardo Dicaprio has launched a thinly-veiled attack on Donald Trump and other Republican candidates who deny climate change. During a press conference in Tokyo at the Japanese opening of his award-winning film The Revenant, the star said the next leader of the world’s most powerful nation should not be someone who refused to listen to reason.

Leonardo DiCaprioThe actor is passionate about climate change

The Guardian reported DiCaprio as saying: "We should not have a candidate who doesn’t believe in modern science to be leading our country.

"Climate change is one of the most concerning issues facing all humanity and the United States needs to do its part."

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Leading republican candidate Donald Trump has said he is "not a big believer in man-made climate change" and Ted Cruz, Trump’s main candidate rival, referred to it as "pseudo-scientific theory".

DiCaprio used his best actor Oscar win in February to call for more to be done to help the environment, explaining that "climate change is real, it is happening right now".

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He told the packed auditorium and the world’s media - all of whom had been waiting for DiCaprio’s first Oscar win during his four previous nominations - that it is the "most urgent threat facing our entire species".

He said: "For our children’s children and for those people whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed... Let us not take this planet for granted."