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Gore: US Close to Political Shift on CC03/18 06:29
Former Vice President Al Gore believes the U.S. is nearing a political
tipping point, with the 2020 Democratic presidential field offering voters the
chance to replace President Donald Trump with someone "committed heart and
soul" to combating climate change.
ATLANTA (AP) -- Former Vice President Al Gore believes the U.S. is nearing a
political tipping point, with the 2020 Democratic presidential field offering
voters the chance to replace President Donald Trump with someone "committed
heart and soul" to combating climate change.
Gore, who emerged as a leading climate activist after losing the 2000
presidential election, told The Associated Press in a Friday interview that he
won't take sides in his party's wide-open nominating fight.
But he said he's talked to several candidates privately and is "encouraged"
by what he's hearing publicly, noting that "at least 10" have declared climate
action a top priority, while Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has put the issue at
the center of his bid.
"We need a new president, and we need a president committed heart and soul
to the climate crises," Gore said during an activist training conference in
Atlanta hosted by his nonprofit, nonpartisan Climate Reality Project. "I'm very
happy that so many of the Democratic candidates have made it clear that's the
way they would intend to govern if they won."
Trump's presidency "is unfortunate in so many ways," Gore said, but he also
credited Trump's open contempt of the scientific consensus that human activity
affects the Earth's atmosphere with pushing many moderates and even some
conservatives toward the more traditional liberal activists on the issue.
Gore, 70, added that public opinion is moving so quickly that a new
president could find the political muscle for sweeping action. "Even people who
used to want to deny it in the past are saying, 'Hey, hold on ... I've had
enough of this,'" he said, citing rising sea levels, droughts and an uptick in
"once-in-1000-year" storms.
"Every night on the news it's like a nature walk through the Book of
Revelation," he said, referring to the last book of the Christian New Testament
that forecasts the end of the Earth.
He praises as "an aspirational goal" the Green New Deal pushed by some
congressional Democrats but agreed the proposed outline for reducing the
nation's net carbon emission to zero in a single decade isn't something that
will clear Capitol Hill in one sweeping act.
Gore, who as a young congressman in the early 1980s stood out for holding
hearings on global warming effects, is clear that he doesn't oppose the larger
legislative effort.
"It creates the political space for working out the details of the best way
to do it, but the main goals are decarbonize the economy, stop using the sky as
an open sewer and create millions of new jobs as we do it," he said.
That could mean, for example, a tax bill with incentives for business and
individuals who invest in solar panels; another tax bill ending fossil fuel
subsidies; an infrastructure bill prioritizing high-speed rail; a state-aid
program for retrofitting existing public buildings; specific requirements for
reducing industrial carbon emissions; and increasing automobile fuel
efficiency. The heaviest lift likely would be taxes on carbon emissions.
Gore dismissed Republican efforts to make climate activists out to be
"socialists" because they support such ideas.
Costs for combating climate change are not insurmountable, Gore insisted. He
argued that the first steps are ending tax advantages for existing fossil fuel
industries and redirecting that public investment to expanding solar energy. At
the state level, he said, lawmakers must grapple with the consequences of
letting regulated monopoly utilities continue to expand their carbon footprints
while squelching clean-energy markets.
Since ending his political career, Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize for
his activism and an Oscar for his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
In recent years, he has added an emphasis on environmental justice, the
argument that existing environmental and economic policy is hardest on poor and
often minority communities. He said he's not sure that angle will translate
into votes, but he said history suggests Americans respond when "examples of
injustice and unfairness are exposed and revealed."
Gore's optimism is striking for a former politician who lost some of his
biggest battles on climate. Most notably, as vice president he helped craft the
Kyoto Treaty --- a forerunner of the Paris Agreement of 2016 --- but watched
the U.S. Senate refuse ratification, just as Trump has scoffed at the Paris
deal.
But Gore noted that his conference overlapped with Friday's worldwide
protests that saw angry students in more than 100 countries walk out of classes
to protest what they see as the failures by their governments to combat climate
change.
"Almost all of the morally based reform movements in human history have had
young people in the forefront. The climate movement is the premier example
now," he said. "These kids are calling to the nation's conscience, and they're
asking us, 'Think about us. Think about our future.' We need to listen to them."
(KA)
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