It’s not every day you get to sit down with the former Vice President of the United States – but we had the pleasure of doing just that, speaking to Al Gore to mark the release of climate change documentary An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.
The film – which gets its UK release on August 18 – is a follow-up to Gore’s eye-opening film back in 2006, which alerted audience worldwide to the devastating truth of global warming, and the dangers we face ahead. In the time between the two features, Gore’s fervent campaigning has continued, and yet still to this day many deny climate change. One of which is the current POTUS, Donald Trump, who recently pulled out of the Paris Agreement.
“I was worried it would be a serious problem when he [Trump] made his speech, I thought other countries may use that as an excuse to pull out themselves, but I was so happy the next day when the entire rest of the world redoubled their commitment to meeting the terms of the Paris Agreement,” Gore explained.
“In the US the Governors of our largest states and hundreds of mayors and thousands of business leaders stepped up to fill the gap and said ‘we’re going to meet the Paris Agreement obligations without Trump’, and it looks as though the US will meet its commitments”.
Gore did admit, however, that Trump’s time in office could still have severe implications to his cause.
“He’s [Trump] put a notorious climate denier in charge of the Environmental Protection agency and he’s trying to do a lot of damage. But there is resilience in the American system, the courts have blocked some of what he is proposing, even the Republican Congress has refused to go along with some of his other proposals, and again, the regional and local governments are filling the gap in many important ways. So he will do some damage but I don’t think that it will be as severe as I once feared”.
We also discussed with Gore why he believers there are still powerful deniers out there, how the influx of news concerning Trump is distracting people away from the dangers of global warming, and we ask the former Vice President’s advice on what we can all do to make a difference.
Watch the full interview below…
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is released on August 18th. You can read our review of the film here.
