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Friends of the Earth calls on Gore: "Read your book Al !"
8 December 1997
Five years ago, Al Gore wrote: "The time has long since come to take more political risks. By proposing tougher more effective solutions and fighting hard for enactment." Today he did neither - bluff and rhetoric marked the US vice-presidents' speech at the Kyoto Climate Summit.
While announcing greater flexibility in the negotiations, vice-president Gore refused to commit to any new targets or timetables. Delegates merely got a restatement of the tired US position which has jeopardized the talks. A reminder of the incalculably high stakes and the shameful inadequacy of the US' proposal was provided by the president of the pacific island state of Nauru. In an unmistakable reference to the US - and directly preceding Gore's speech - Kinza Clodumar warned heads of state and delegates today that failure to take significant action on climate change would amount to cultural genocide for peoples on the frontlines of climate havoc.
Corinna Gilfillan, campaigner from Friends of the Earth USA said:
“The Democratic party`s 1993 Election victory was in part achieved because people expected that a vote for Bill Clinton was a vote for the planet, not least because of Al Gore's famous green book. Five years later - with the global atmosphere out of balance - the fine words of that lauded tome echo with cavernous hollowness. This is the moment for Gore to match his earlier rhetoric with strong commitments for significant, legally binding reductions of greenhouse gases”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS:
[1] Al Gore`s book, Earth in the Balance, was published in 1992.
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jun 2008
