Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurene Powell Jobs, Brian Sheth team up to battle climate change

WASHINGTON D.C. [USA]: Hollywood and 'Titanic' fame actor Leonardo DiCaprio along with his environment charity are teaming up with Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs and billionaire investor Brian Sheth to launch a new alliance to tackle climate change.

The Oscar-winning actor who is also the founding co-chair will convert The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation into Earth Alliance as he combines with Powell and Sheth, who is a co-founder and president of the private equity fund Vista Equity Partners and also board chair of the Global Wildlife Conservation, reported by The Hollywood Reporter. In the last twenty years, DiCaprio's foundation has supported nearly 200 projects from 132 organisations across climate change, marine and land conversation, critical species preservation and indigenous rights.

Sheth also founded the Sheth Sangreal Foundation, which will completely look after the finance of the administrative costs of Earth Alliance.




"Today marks the next step in the evolution of LDF as it fully merges under the new Earth Alliance management and grant-making framework," DiCaprio said Tuesday in a statement. "Laurene and Brian are incredible civic leaders who share my passion and understanding of the urgency and scale of the challenges we face," he added.

The Alliance aims to work at multiple levels from providing grants and educational opportunities to engaging indigenous and local communities. They will work at the grassroot level with organisations and individuals in the places most affected by biodiversity loss and climate change. Funding campaigns, documentary films, third- party independent environmental reporting and public speaking opportunities, will be the other things that the Alliance will be actively involved in.

DiCaprio's environmental charity which was founded in 1998, has handed out around $100 million in grants to tackle climate change around the world.

At the same time, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation got caught in a multibillion-dollar Malaysian corruption scandal and an international money-laundering scheme that allegedly was used to fund the movie 'The Wolf of Wall Street', in which the Hollywood actor starred.

Recently, the 'Blood Diamond' actor also expressed his concern over Chennai's growing water shortage issue. The award winning actor posted on social media that Chennai needs rainfall in order to salvage the situation. The eco-warrior wrote in his post how women are struggling to fetch water from an empty well. The crisis situation has led people to stand in long queues in order to get water. He also brought to notice that some hotels and restaurants had temporarily been shut to deal with the situation.

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#Regram #RG @bbcnews: "Only rain can save Chennai from this situation." A well completely empty, and a city without water. The southern Indian city of Chennai is in crisis, after the four main water reservoirs ran completely dry. The acute water shortage has forced the city to scramble for urgent solutions and residents have to stand in line for hours to get water from government tanks. As the water levels depleted, hotels and restaurants started to shut down temporarily, and the air con was turned off in the city's metro. Officials in the city continue to try and find alternative sources of water - but the community continue to pray for rain. Tap the link in our bio to read more about Chennai's water crisis. (📸 Getty Images) #chennai #watercrisis #india #bbcnews

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on Jun 25, 2019 at 1:42pm PDT

"I am proud to join with Leo and Brian to make habitable earth possible for future generations. Leo is one of the most uniquely gifted communicators of our time, and with Earth Alliance, we will harness those gifts to inspire people, regardless of age, race, or geography, to stand up as leaders for our natural world and safeguard our imperilled planet," Powell Jobs said in her own statement.

"Our planet is at a critical turning point, and we have an opportunity to transition our society to a sustainable one in harmony with -- and in support of -- all life on Earth," Sheth added in his own statement.