Al Gore criticizes corporations and politicians, comparing their climate crisis promises to ‘New Year’s resolutions’

Al Gore has enjoyed a highly successful career, including as a U.S. senator, U.S. vice president, U.S. presidential candidate, and even the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner for “telling the world about the dangers of climate change.” In May of this year, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his lifetime of service.

But what still eludes him is how much progress he expected to see on the climate crisis by now, some 45 years after he attended the first congressional hearing on fusion. What infuriates him most, he says, is that the world already has the mandate to fix what’s broken—if only there were the financial and political will to do so.

He’s not without hope. This editor spoke with Gore and his business partner Lila Preston Tuesday morning about the new annual climate report from their sustainability-focused investment management firm, Generation Investment Management (it’s really good). But the report was less promising than last year’s edition, and Gore sounded a bit more frustrated than when I spoke with him last year. We’ll have a podcast of that interview later this week. In the meantime, here are a few excerpts from the conversation, lightly edited for length.

TC: I read the report last night and I have to say that in some ways it seems gloomier and less optimistic than it did a year ago.

AG: It’s a deliberate approach on our part. We still believe that the world will solve this crisis, but the question is how quickly we can do it, because every day more damage is being done and more risk is being put on humanity. After the final document was written at (the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference), we all tried to understand the real meaning of “transition” away from fossil fuels and (that goal was then written into international law). But in the immediate aftermath, some of the major fossil fuel companies resumed a massive expansion of exploration and development of even more fossil fuels, despite the International Energy Agency saying that it was unnecessary and contrary to the energy transition that was so necessary. Since then, we’ve seen some financial services companies backtrack on their commitments as well… so those commitments sometimes start to feel like New Year’s resolutions: easy to make and hard to achieve.

So it’s the “law” but there are no penalties for these fossil fuel companies for further expansion?

One of the extremely dangerous risks that they should be taking into account much more is the risk of stranded assets. Fatih Birol (head of the International Energy Agency) has highlighted this risk, but old habits die hard, especially when they are old, profitable habits.

As you said, it’s not just industry, it’s also governments. The report addresses the growing opposition to climate policy in different parts of the world, including opposition to wind farms and solar farms. How can governments overcome that? How can they better engage the public in supporting this energy transition?

The effectiveness of self-government is itself one of the issues that needs to be addressed. The fossil fuel industry is the richest, most powerful lobby in the history of the world. They are much better at catching politicians than they are at catching emissions, and they are deliberately slowing down this transition, and governments are slow to respond.

There is some good news. Passing the Inflation Reduction Act was a milestone, and it took some time to get the money out and implement the various programs (it) authorized, but we are now starting to see them having a huge impact. Europe continues to lead the way. China continues to build out too much fossil fuel infrastructure. But between January 1 and the end of July this year, China has deployed as much new solar capacity as would be provided by about 18 new 1-gigawatt nuclear plants every month. This is incredible. And even if you adjust for capacity factors and all that, that’s still an amount of available capacity equal to more than five new nuclear power plants every month.

So we have good news, but we’re still moving too slowly because we’re still using the sky as an open sewer. We’re still trapping as much extra heat every day as 750,000 Hiroshima-class nuclear bombs exploding on Earth every day. It’s really crazy that we’re still allowing this to happen, and we all need to get involved—all sectors, all industries.

I’m sure you’ve been asked a lot about fusion energy, which promises to harness the nuclear force that powers the sun to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth. Without much evidence, VCs have poured $7.1 billion into a handful of startups in recent years. Are they being overly optimistic, or do you think there’s some truth to it?

Generation has innovated the concept of the time value of coal, and while it’s incredibly valuable that these early investors are trying to accelerate the development of fusion and also (small modular reactors), even the most optimistic of these investors will tell you in their honest moments that it’s going to be a long time before fusion reactors play any significant role. I hope that we can accelerate that time. I attended my first congressional hearing on fusion 45 years ago this year, and the experts at the table told our subcommittee that it’s 50 years away, so now I’m getting excited. But jokes aside, while there’s real progress there, let’s be realistic; it’s going to take time and we have an immediate challenge, and the time value of coal tells us that we really need to reduce emissions… We need to focus on the immediate solutions that are available now to address this dire climate crisis by accelerating all efforts to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Many people are grateful that you, Bill Gates, and others like you are putting climate change and climate solutions at the forefront. At the same time, you have already enjoyed incredibly successful careers; you can afford the ups and downs that come with advocating for major policy and financial changes to address climate change. Who are the business and political leaders who will stand behind you to carry the torch? Do you feel like we are being embraced on that front? Are you concerned?

The people we deal with every day, especially (at Generation), are incredible. One of the lesser-seen factors in this transformation is that the companies that are leading the way are pulling the best and brightest young people out of university and engineering, and people of all ages are changing careers to be part of it. We are meeting the most extraordinary entrepreneurs who are just burning with passion to play a significant role in solving this crisis. There are so many examples. One business leader in the UK who we have supported very strongly, Greg Jackson from Octopus Energy, is really driving significant change in the electricity retail sector. The CEO of H2 Green Steel is another… business leader of the future who is doing a great job right now.

LP: We call this basket of leaders systemic positive thinkers. They’re really changing the whole system. They’re thinking about: How do we redesign supply chains? Companies like (advanced supply chain planning firms) o9 Solutions and Altana.ai have this huge ambition, (with) the recognition that these solutions need to be better and cheaper, and the result will be a smaller carbon footprint, more environmentally friendly, more sustainable. And that’s exciting. That’s the opportunity.

I wish we had more well-known, positive thinkers about the system. Some of the richest people in the world have the world’s attention and (could make a significant impact by being) more visibly focused on the same issues.

AG: We have TechCrunch!