Al Gore at 20-Year Climate Anniversary: 'We Are Going to Win This' — SkimNews
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- Al Gore, 78, told a New York event on Wednesday marking 20 years since the 2006 release of "An Inconvenient Truth" that scientists have been "absolutely correct" about climate damage and that fossil fuel industry resistance has been "more durable and sustained than I expected."
- Gore's Climate Reality Project has built a network of 4.5 million climate activists across 196 countries since the film's release, part of a grassroots movement he launched after losing the 2000 presidential election.
- Gore cited recent Guardian reporting that Saudi oil operatives helped craft high-profile UN climate reports, saying the fossil fuel industry has "captured control of too many governments" and even "to a shocking degree" the UN's top climate science apparatus.
- Gore warned of looming tipping points including "rampant melting of the ice sheets and the Amazon turning into a savanna" that would cause "utter devastation," while also expressing confidence the world is "very close" to a positive tipping point where public opinion becomes "unstoppable."
- Rapid deployment of clean energy has made end-of-century warming projections of 4°C or more now considered unlikely, as renewables are routinely cheaper than coal and gas in many markets.
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking at a separate climate event timed to the anniversary, said continued fossil fuel expansion is "defying science, economics and common sense" but declared clean energy has gone "from alternative to unstoppable."
Why it matters: Gore's dual message — a 4.5-million-strong activist network and accelerating clean energy on one side, fossil-fuel "capture" of UN science bodies and looming tipping points like Amazon dieback on the other — frames the climate fight as a close race between unstoppable clean-tech momentum and narrowing time to avoid irreversible damage.
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