Australia:Gore talks up Kyoto

[cal04]

Former United States Vice President and environmental crusader Al Gore believes that if Australia signs the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse gases, the United States is likely to follow suit.

Mr Gore has told Sky News that the Australian government's environmental policies do not reflect the attitudes of the Australian people and has urged voters to make the environment a key issue at the upcoming election.

Mr Gore said: 'There is no country where the personal sentiment, where the overwhelming tide of popular opinion is as strong as it is here.'

'If that's expressed in a way that leads Australia to rejoin the international community and embrace this effort to solve the climate crisis - that's the single most important thing that could happen, to tip the United States at this pivotal moment,' he added.

http://www2.skynews.com.au/eco/article.aspx?id=190791
Al Gore: Climate change policy should decide Australian election outcome
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/22/asia/AS-POL-Australia-Gore.php

[rosesaylavee]

1. This is great if the Australians do what he suggests

but embarrassing to me ... personally. What it must feel like for a former US Vice President to talk to another country about how they could perhaps persuade the US by taking rational and appropriate action to control the climate crisis - I can only begin to imagine. This is a hard pill to take all the way around.

So much for the US leading on this. Our govt is such an embarrassment.

[leebert]

2. Get China & India to phase in ...

... and I think the USA & Australia will follow suit.

I think it's idealistic, even with the Australians suffering their biggest drought, to believe that the "skeptic" countries will engage Kyoto considering the mess in China... with the huge Asian Brown Cloud actually changing the global environment, in the Arctic & all across Asia & the Pacific.