Energy

Al Gore: ‘We’re Running Out Of Time’ On Global Warming

REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

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Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
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Former Vice President Al Gore warned the world was “running out of time” to stop catastrophic global warming in a statement published after the United Nations released its special climate report Sunday night.

“Today the world’s leading scientific experts collectively reinforced what Mother Nature has made clear – that we need to undergo an urgent and rapid transformation to a global clean energy economy,” Gore said in a statement.

“However, time is running out, so we must capitalize and build upon the solutions available today. Solving the climate crisis requires vision and leadership,” Gore said before attacking President Donald Trump.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report on keeping future warming in line with the stretch goal of the Paris climate accord. The report is meant to send a dire warning ahead of a UN climate summit in December.

To keep future warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the IPCC said greenhouse gas emissions must fall 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030. Emissions must decrease 100 percent by 2050, according to the report.

The world would have to largely abandon its use of coal for electricity and use more solar and wind power, the IPCC said. However, the IPCC noted the costs of such a transition would be high, and options could include a carbon tax as high as $27,000 per ton by 2100.

The IPCC’s report also admitted that many types of extreme weather, including tropical cyclones and droughts, aren’t being made more frequent or intense by global warming. (RELATED: It’s The Final Chance We Have To Stop Global Warming … Until The Next Chance)

Gore used the UN’s dire warning to go after Trump, casting his administration as stooges of the fossil fuel industry. Gore has previously said Trump should “resign” because of his unwillingness to fight global warming.

“Unfortunately, the Trump administration has become a rogue outlier in its shortsighted attempt to prop up the dirty fossil fuel industries of the past,” Gore said in a statement. “The administration is in direct conflict with American businesses, states, cities, and citizens leading the transformation.”

The Trump administration criticized the UN’s report, according to leaked comments, including not adequately talking about “the credibility of models (or methodologies) used in the report to project future impacts.” The administration also noted the benefits of fossil fuels to the global economy.

“The fastest and greatest declines in poverty have occurred in China and India even as they have ramped up their use of fossil fuels,” they said in comments to the UN that were later leaked to the media outlet Climate Home News.

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