Letter From Europe
Climate change and Al Gore
The United Nations Environment Program has just published a report on the deteriorating situation of biodiversity, land degradation, fisheries and fresh water. It is a serious document, and has been described as "the final wake-up call to the international community." Nearly four hundred scientists and environmental experts participated in its preparation.
The report deals with a number of environmental tipping points, "at which degradation can lead to abrupt, accelerating or potentially irreversible changes." One of the tipping points mentioned in the report is of particular concern to the populations in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. According to this report, climate change could trigger an irreversible melting process of the Himalayan glaciers, creating havoc in these countries.
On the specific issue of greenhouse gas emissions, the report warns that the annual emissions have risen by about one-third since 1967, and that if urgent measures are not taken to cut emissions we could soon reach an environmental tipping point at which irreversible change would become inevitable.
Many biologists and climate scientists have been acutely aware of this danger for a long time, and have been urging the politicians and business tycoons to take necessary measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also to create greater awareness among the public about climate change.
Luckily, things have started to change, albeit slowly. Now subjects like "ice melting, water and air pollution, species vanishing, and cities choking the people who live in them" have forced their way into our homes, offices, factories and government circles across the world, and it is no exaggeration to say that a lot of it is due to the former US vice-president Al Gore.
Gore first became aware of the phenomenon of global warming when he was a young student at Harvard. Since then he has devoted a lot of time and energy to make people aware of the dangers of climate change.
Indeed, this year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him -- together with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- for being "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater world-wide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted" to fight global warming. How did he do it?
There was no magic formula. A lot of courage and hard work went into the project. After losing the presidency to George W. Bush, Gore left politics, prepared a Power Point presentation on the dangers of climate change (which later became the Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth"), and started a life on the road with the zeal of a missionary to preach his truth about climate change.
He gave hundreds of presentations all over the world, and fielded thousands of questions from the audience. Yet, he felt more had to be done. So he founded a Nashville based organisation called The Climate Project (TCP) to train volunteers in how to make his climate change presentations.
Each volunteer agreed in turn to give ten presentations of his own over the next year. The idea was enormously successful. It had a multiplying effect on spreading Gore's message to an ever-increasing number of people. Soon, TCP branches were opened in the UK and Australia to train volunteers.
The Climate Project Spain (TCPS) has just been established with great enthusiasm in the southern Spanish city of Seville. 220 volunteers, or "missionaries," were chosen out of nearly 3000 applicants.
Al Gore came to inaugurate the conference, and took an active part in the training sessions where he showed his passion for the cause. All the volunteers paid for their hotel and transportation expenses from their own pockets.
Gore mingled with them as though he was their friend, guide and prophet. He asked them to draw inspiration from each other and build a support network of fellow activists.
At the end of the conference, which was hosted by the Spanish regional government of Andalusia, all the volunteers made solemn pledges to spread the message by giving ten presentations each during the course of the next twelve months. It was an impressive ceremony.
Addressing the conference, Mr. Manuel Chaves, the Andalusian regional chief minister, promised to take immediate actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a significant manner. He forecasted that 18.2 % of the region's energy needs would come from renewable sources by 2013.
Unfortunately, Spain's record in this field is definitely poor. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the fifteen pre-expansion member states of the old European Union (EU) agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8% during the period 2008 to 2012, from 1990 levels.
Probably no other geographical area of the industrialised world has taken the dangers of global warming more seriously than the EU. While Germany and Britain have done particularly well in this field, Spain's performance has been very bad. Instead of reducing the emissions, it has, in fact, increased them over the 1990 level.
Al Gore suggested that Andalusia, with its three thousand hours of sunlight per year and strong winds, is in a unique position to provide much of Spain's energy needs from these resources, if they are harvested properly. It seems that Gore's presence in Spain has had a beneficial side effect.
Coinciding with his presence in Spain, on October 26, the Spanish National Council on Climate Change finally approved an urgent action plan consisting of 198 measures to achieve at least some of the Kyoto goals.
After he lost the presidency of the United States seven years ago because of a politically motivated Supreme Court decision, Gore abandoned politics, turned to his other passion, climate change, and became an environmental activist. Fate deprived Gore of being the president of the United States, but gave him the opportunity to become an internationally acclaimed leader with great moral standing. It may sound rather far-fetched but, at 59, he may still have an opportunity to occupy the White House one day.
Chaklader Mahboob-ul Alam is a columnist for The Daily Star.
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