Via NYT \\ Why Al Gore is shifting his climate activism abroad
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| Former Vice President Al Gore with participants at a meeting of the Climate Reality Project in Paris last month. Thibaud Moritz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
Why Al Gore is shifting his climate activism abroad
 | By David Gelles |
Al Gore, who served as vice president for eight years before becoming a full-time climate activist, knows something about presidential power.
And in recent weeks, Gore has watched with alarm as President Trump stretches the limits of executive authority to dismantle federal climate policy, roll back environmental protections and eliminate incentives for clean energy.
He’s watched the canceled federal grants, the mass layoffs, the paused renewable energy permitting and the gutting of the United States Agency for International Development, and he’s watched as the Environmental Protection Agency revised its mission.
Each of these actions is disrupting efforts to reduce emissions and protect the environment.
“Are they different in blowing through stop signs and warning signs and red lines and constitutional barriers?” he said. “Of course they are. I mean, this is something new for sure.”
But a more overarching concern, Gore said, is Trump’s attempts to override Congress.
Trump has tried to freeze money for clean energy projects that was already authorized in laws like the Inflation Reduction Act, and other funds that were supposed to be distributed by the E.P.A.
“He is claiming the right to authorize and appropriate or rescind the spending power and the taxing power that is clearly given to the Congress in Article I,” he said, referring to the Constitution.
Gore said he believed the courts would prevent Trump from implementing some of his most extreme moves. “I don’t think he’s going to be able to get away with that,” he said. “I think we’re more resilient as a constitutional, representative democracy than a lot of people of fear.”
But as the U.S. walks away from its climate leadership, Gore has shifted the focus of his activism abroad.
Overseas action
Last weekend in Paris, Gore kicked off a global tour of the Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit he founded in 2006.
The group works on a number of fronts. It conducts trainings worldwide, including upcoming events in Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi, Kenya, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It helps citizens mobilize political pressure and campaign for clean energy solutions and environmental regulations. And it has youth programs and a grant-making initiative.
Gore believes that by imbuing concern for the climate into a broad cross section of society, governments and big businesses will be more likely to take urgent action to reduce emissions, particularly outside the U.S.
“Grassroots pressure in countries around the world is a key element in mobilizing sufficient public support for the urgent climate action that’s needed,” he said. “And with the newly elected leadership in the U.S., other countries will play an even more significant role.”
Climate activists in the U.S. have recently experienced a series of setbacks, including the potentially fatal verdict against Greenpeace and Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Inflation Reduction Act.
But in much of the rest of the world, Gore said, climate activists were more motivated than ever as global temperatures rise and extreme weather intensifies.
The tour started in Paris to mark the 10th anniversary of the Paris climate accord. That agreement, in which most countries around the world pledged to try to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, already looks irrelevant.
Global average temperatures have been reaching highs for more than a year, and are forecast to go higher in the years ahead. Morgan Stanley recently warned clients to prepare for 3 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels.
Measured optimism
Despite the moves by the Trump administration and the continued planetary warming, Gore expressed some hope that the transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy was continuing apace. That’s a theme we’ve heard recently from many policymakers, executives and experts.
And Gore noted that in Trump’s first term, overall emissions in the U.S. fell while solar capacity more than doubled and coal use declined, even as the administration slashed pollution regulations and cut federal support for climate issues.
The hope, Gore said, is that something similar will happen over the next four years.
“Has he slowed some things down? For sure,” Gore said. “But will this continue? Of course. It’s inevitable.”
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