Al Gore: 'Donald Trump is nothing if not unpredictable'

“Among the lessons I learned eleven years ago,” explains Al Gore, “was that a movie can be the most effective way to communicate with tens of millions of people.” The former Vice President of the United States, suited, silver-haired and sitting across a table from me in a Mayfair hotel suite, is talking about An Inconvenient Truth. His 2006 documentary about the cataclysmic dangers of climate change, the film proved the perfect platform – earning $49 million at the box office, winning an Oscar and even gaining Gore a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

It also won him a fair share of detractors, as television and online commentators were swift to dismantle his claims on global warming. A decade on and Gore is back with a follow-up, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power. Directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, it follows him across the globe on his ceaseless quest to educate and negotiate, including at the 2015 United Nations climate change conference in Paris. Given President Trump’s recent decision to withdraw America from the Paris Agreement, Gore’s new film feels like a sharp and timely reminder of what’s at stake.

When Gore took the film to Cannes in May, he was hopeful that Trump would stay in. As he told me then, “I have criticised Donald Trump’s policies and many of his appointees but I have engaged with him nevertheless and met with him after the election and have continued conversations with him, focused on only one thing – the reasons why the United States should stay in the Paris Agreement.” Yet even then he was uncertain about Trump’s position. “He is nothing if not unpredictable.”

If the subsequent reversal by Trump must’ve felt like a body blow, Gore isn’t letting it show when we meet for a second time. “In that speech, Trump said he was elected to represent Pittsburgh not Paris. And the very next day, the Mayor of Pittsburgh [Democrat Bill Peduto] said, ‘Well, I'm still in! Our city is still in Paris and we're going to go one hundred percent renewable.’ Atlanta has now made that commitment. Many cities have already achieved that including [Republican-run] Georgetown, Texas, as portrayed in the movie.”

Additionally, over a thousand mayors, businesses, investors and academic institutions have signed a pact called ‘We Are Still In’. “It looks as if the U.S. is going to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, regardless of Trump,” says Gore. “It kind of illustrates the law of physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction to Trump is quite strong and very beneficial to the climate.” Still, for all the positivity that Gore exudes, it must feel like two steps forward one back.

He likens it to previous social revolutions in human history: the abolition of slavery, the anti-Apartheid movement, gay rights and equality for women. “All of these have at times seemed impossible and produced despair for the advocates. The late Nelson Mandela said, ‘It’s always impossible until it’s done!’ If someone had told me in the US, even seven years ago, that gay marriage would be legal in all 50 states, and accepted and celebrated by two thirds of the American people, I would’ve said, ‘I sure hope so but what are you smoking?’”

Certainly An Inconvenient Sequel comes with a hopeful message; the climate crisis may have accelerated but so has the interest in alternative energy sources. Solar and wind power technologies, says Gore, “have been developing with great speed and have now fallen in cost to the point where in a growing number of areas in the world, it is now cheaper to get electricity and economic growth from renewable [sources] compared to the old dirty fossil fuel-based approaches.”

Early reviews have criticised the film for being vainglorious, showing Gore as he evangelises on climate change, even depicting him as instrumental amid the negotiations in Paris when it came to dealing with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Compared to the slideshow-lecture approach taken by Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, the sequel is more 80 Days Around The World, but it’s hard not to be struck by sobering shots of Miami streets flooding or ice shelves melting in Greenland.

As Gore-centric as the film is, the former politician – who was born in Washington D.C. with a father who served for eighteen years as U.S. Senator for Tennessee – doesn’t come across, in person or on screen, as someone out for himself. He may have spent two terms under Bill Clinton in the White House, but his subsequent loss running for president led him to change direction. “One of the world’s leading environmentalist politicians”, as the Nobel committee dubbed him, his work will surely be remembered by future generations.

Much of his skill comes in recruiting others – with his Climate Reality Project, now with ten branches across the globe, dedicated to training environmental activists. One hundred percent of the film’s profits go to funding the CRP, though Gore suggests every individual can help, even those who do not dedicate their lives to green issues. Use your vote wisely, he says, and look for climate-friendly alternatives when buying products in the marketplace. “It not only helps you be a part of the solution, it send a powerful signal to business and industry.”

A father of four, the 69 year-old Gore tells me how each of his children has taken up green issues – including oldest daughter Karenna, who features in the film and works for the Centre For Earth Ethics in New York. He has four grandchildren now “and another one the way” and you sense that first and foremost, Gore is concerned about the planet he will leave behind. “I think constantly of what world they will inherit,” he says, quietly, all too aware that his mission is far from complete.

Such is his passion, even in the twilight of his career, Gore’s own energy appears renewable. Don’t be surprised if, in ten years time, a third film is made with an ageing Gore once again putting mankind under the microscope. “We will reach a point where we cross the political threshold that has characterised every successful social revolution in human history,” he says. “Even then the work will continue. We are going to win this.”

'An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power' opens on 18 August