Emma Thompson was pictured holding a sign that reads: ‘Tony Abbott climate change is real, I’m standing on it!’

The double Oscar-winner, who arrived in the Arctic on Wednesday and visited the remote Smeerenburg glacier, was also pictured with another sign which read, ‘Where I stand should be ice’.

 

Fellow celebrities including Tom Hanks have expressed their support for the campaign over Twitter.

Abbott, who once described climate change as ‘crap’, was targeted alongside US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who also received personalised messages.

In a blog post on Greenpeace.org, Thompson said: ‘We’re told that it is all our fault, global warming – we want the fuel, we want our cars, and that the oil industry is merely responding to the needs of a greedy public.

‘But that’s simply not fair. Most of us want to live cleaner lives, but our governments don’t make these things easily available.

‘The changes we need, that the Arctic needs, must come from the top as well as the bottom. We need electric cars to be cheaper and more accessible. We want safer bike lanes in every big city.

‘We want plastic bags to be banned for good. We need governments to stand up to the dirty industries that have for so long funded and controlled them, and to give us all an affordable chance to live our lives in a more sustainable way.’

Image via Getty