Al Gore warns US election outcome will determine pace of climate action

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The US faces a “Manichaean choice” over climate action in the presidential election, according to former vice-president Al Gore, joining scientists and green business leaders in warning a Donald Trump victory “would be very bad”.

Gore, who won an Oscar and Nobel Peace Prize for his 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth on global warming, said that voters who cared about climate change faced the “clearest choice ever” at the November election.

“The contrast actually could not be any clearer. It’s a choice between a candidate who believes the climate crisis is real and has been very vigorous in acting accordingly . . . and another candidate who regularly spreads falsehoods about the reality of the crisis, the efficacy of the solutions and much else.”

Climate change has not featured prominently in the contest between Kamala Harris and Trump, meriting one question in a recent debate.

But Gore said that their respective policy positions were evident. “Most climate activists that I know in the United States believe that the single most important near-term decision America can make with regard to climate is who is the next president. It’s a bit of a Manichaean choice.”

Despite his strong views about the consequences of a Trump election, Gore also argued that the shift to a cleaner economy was “unstoppable at this point”.

“The direction of travel for the world as a whole, for the global economy is now set,” he said. “The remaining question is how fast this transition can occur. And of course, that will be affected by who is the next president of the United States.”

Gore was speaking as Generation Investment Management, the sustainable investment manager where he is co-founder and chair, published its eighth Sustainability Trends Report, which highlights increasingly fraught geopolitics, including between China and the west.

The scale and speed of the rollout of renewable energy in China was “quite remarkable”, he said, but also predicted rising tensions as the country became “more aggressively authoritarian” coupled with “the desire of developed countries to protect their own industries from unfair practices”.

The world had reached a milestone of $2 invested in clean energy for every dollar going into fossil fuels, the report found. This followed a 74 per cent surge in solar panel installation last year. But the report singled out the buildings sector as being “not remotely on track” on the greenhouse gas emissions cuts needed of 50 per cent by 2030.

Gore said he was “very optimistic overall. But the pace is worrying for sure”.

Many governments remained captive to the fossil fuel industry, he said, and oil and gas producers were “seeking to block positive changes and aggressively seeking to even expand the absurd subsidies for fossil fuels”.

“The very fact that they’ve been able to persuade their captive, friendly policymakers to force taxpayers around the world to subsidise the destruction, the damaging of humanity’s future is itself a part of the problem.”

But he believed this alliance would eventually weaken. “We’re going to see that it’s progressively harder for the fossil fuel companies to require their political and financial allies to continue subsidising fossil fuels, even as it’s very clear the handwriting is on the wall and we’re going to win this. But the question remains, how long will it take?”

Gore said he planned to attend the UN COP29 climate summit, which will take place a week after the US election. “The eyes of the climate world are looking towards COP30 in Brazil with more optimism than they can summon for COP29 in Baku, but I’m not going to write it off.”