{"id":180004,"date":"2025-11-14T08:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T08:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/180004\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T08:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T08:30:09","slug":"al-gore-says-donald-trump-not-a-cause-for-panic-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/180004\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Gore says Donald Trump not a cause for panic \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty years after he made the terrifying climate<\/a> apocalypse documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, former US vice-president Al Gore<\/a> is back with a new message: don\u2019t panic. <\/p>\n

He referred specifically to the fresh \u201cemergency\u201d facing the world, Donald Trump<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But although he didn\u2019t play down the influence of the climate-denying US leader, he said other countries should not over-react. <\/p>\n

\u201cA friend of mine said, there\u2019s an equation worth remembering,\u201d he began in an interview at a Ted Talks event in Bel\u00e9m, host city to the Cop30<\/a> climate summit. <\/p>\n

\u201cTen years ago, 195 nations signed the Paris Agreement [on cutting greenhouse gas emissions]. Only one has withdrawn. 195 minus one does not equal zero.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate, it\u2019s regrettable but let\u2019s not over-react to it.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Cop30: Minister commits to supporting poor nations but concerns over climate funding remainOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"AlAl Gore described US president Donald Trump as a modern-day King Canute, trying to hold back the tide of renewable energy and green tech. ‘It\u2019s unstoppable,’ Mr Gore said. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

He described Trump as a modern-day King Canute, trying to hold back the tide of renewable energy and green tech. \u201cIt\u2019s unstoppable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr Gore said a new era was beginning with space for other nations to take the lead on climate and multilateralism. <\/p>\n

Which country would lead, he wasn\u2019t sure. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe EU has the basic values that most people around the world respect, but they have a multiple-voices problem and a fine, but not very strong, CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina wants to be the successor to the US but because they do not share the values that most people aspire to, most people are not looking to China.\u201d <\/p>\n

Regardless, every nation had to work to make the new era succeed, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the next climate proposal or international treaty comes up, it\u2019s important for nations to stand up.\u201d <\/p>\n

If a new proposal comes up, it may be at Cop30 but Mr Gore said the \u201cwackadoodle\u201d summit needed reform. <\/p>\n

He proposes banning fossil fuel delegates, letting the UN decide the host country [Australia and Turkey are bickering over rights to Cop31] and replacing the consensus requirement for decisions with a simple majority vote<\/p>\n

There was another wackadoodle on his mind, Bill Gates, who, citing \u201cclimate realism\u201d, said recently pouring money into reducing greenhouse gas emissions should no longer be a priority as human health was more important and should be first in line for investment. <\/p>\n

\"AlAl Gore pictured in 2006 when the film An Inconvenient Truth was released. Photograph: Mark Mainz\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a silly statement,\u201d Mr Gore said, noting that the World Health Organisation regards climate change as the biggest risk to human health. <\/p>\n

His own Climate Trace project, an open digital resource that maps the world\u2019s major emission sources, has recently added air pollution sources to emphasise the combined dangers. <\/p>\n

But though he had a swipe at one tech giant, Mr Gore was quick to defend the rise of Big AI and its associated emissions. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe electricity demand increase associated with AI is a cause of concern, not panic,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Emissions from AI were less than those from rotting waste in open landfills that could easily be enclosed, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many other examples of how we can compensate for the increased emissions from data centres.\u201d <\/p>\n

Every so often, he broke from policy talk to address the room as if on the hustings. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am here to recruit you,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are winning but not fast enough.\u201d <\/p>\n

So would he run for president in 2028? The audience cheered loudly. \u201cDo it, Al,\u201d they urged. <\/p>\n

Mr Gore said there were good young Democrats coming through the ranks and, at 77 years old, he didn\u2019t sense a demand for another septuagenarian president. <\/p>\n

Batting off flattery about the legacy of that mid-2000s documentary that terrified viewers and inspired a generation of activists, he could only joke. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, because if it had not been for me, we might have a big problem.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty years after he made the terrifying climate apocalypse documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, former US vice-president Al Gore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[62168,377,9,10,442,47570,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-180004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-al-gore","9":"tag-brazil","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-climate-change","13":"tag-cop30","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115547119752052377","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}