Al Gore looks to India to lead climate change fight

India Today Conclave
India Today ConclaveEvent CoverageDay 3 March 15, '08



Al Gore looks to India to lead climate change fight
Saurabh Shukla
New Delhi, March 15, 2008




"Become activist citizens; India can lead the way on climate change," global eco-warrior and former US Vice-President Al Gore said today.

Al Gore was speaking at the concluding session “Leadership For 21st Century” at the India Today Conclave 2008 in New Delhi.

"Have pollution taxes, reduce other taxes," proposed the Nobel Peace Laureate for 2007, adding that this was the mantra many countries had adopted.

Ringing the alarm bells on the global crisis of climate change, Al Gore said: "We face a planetary emergency. The change of thinking has to happen in India, changing the laws is more important."

Al Gore – an Oscar winner for his movie An Inconvenient Truth and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for creating awareness on climate change – said the sense of urgency on tackling climate change is still not there. "Advanced developing countries like India have to provide leadership," he said.

Asked why countries were not doing enough to address the crisis, Al Gore said: "India has a big role to play, India is not doing it because the US is not doing. We share each other’s excuses for not safeguarding the planet."

AL Gore
Climate change shouldn't be treated as a political problem but a moral imperative, says Al Gore
"The goal is to evoke an effective response that requires mass action," he added.

Al Gore was candid in admitting that the US needs to do much more on climate change. He said US – the single largest emitter of global emissions – has done the least in solving the problem. "The US should be providing leadership which it is not. We need to see it not as a political problem but as a moral imperative."

Al Gore said the opportunity is far more than the danger that climate crisis poses. "We must see the opportunity and rise to it for the future generations to undertake work to do our part and do it well."

Articulating his concerns on the climate change crisis, Al Gore often had the audience in splits. "I am a recovering politician," he said.

"I flew on Air Force Two for eight years, now I have to take my shoes off to get on an airplane," Al Gore earlier said to a loud applause.

Asked why he didn’t do enough about climate change when in power, Al Gore said: "I did everything I could do while I was Vice-President. I went to Kyoto against the advice of everyone, but I was not able to convince more than one out of 100 senators to ratify it. But they feared they will be defeated."

"I realised this (climate change issue) could be solved if there is a sense of urgency and a sea change in public opinion."

Earlier Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief, India Today, welcomed Al Gore for the event’s gala dinner. "Al, you are a rock star today in your own right. Your work on climate change is pure genius, you have made climate change a sexy subject," Purie said, complementing the global leader on sensitising the world to the dangers of climate change.