Former VP Al Gore marks 20 years since ‘An Inconvenient Truth’

[00:00:01] Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Former Vice President Al Gore wrote and narrated the film about climate change, and since its release, fewer people now question the science of human-amplified climate change. For instance, with hurricane season now upon us, it's important to remind ourselves how warmer ocean temperatures are likely contributing to stronger hurricanes that intensify more rapidly. ABC News Chief Climate Correspondent Ginger Zee sat down with former Vice President Gore at his family farm in Tennessee to discuss what's changed and what hasn't in the 20 years since the release of An Inconvenient Truth. [00:00:40] Speaker 2: If you just listen to the silence for a minute and the birds. [00:00:46] Speaker 3: The banks of the Caney Fork River in Tennessee don't look much different than they did 20 years ago. That moment, we were introduced to the river and the farm owned by former Vice President Al Gore in the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. [00:01:02] Speaker 2: We have the ability to do this. So this trail runs along the river all the way around the farm. [00:01:11] Speaker 3: It's so peaceful. But in the two decades since the film debuted, the world around the Caney Fork has changed a lot. But when you see the film, do you feel like it still holds up? [00:01:21] Speaker 2: Unfortunately, yes. And the scientists were dead right on all the important elements of it. And it really is insane that we are continuing to use the sky as an open sewer, and we're trapping so much heat every day, it's equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth. [00:01:48] Speaker 3: If the scientists were dead right, why has so much been made about this documentary and what was wrong? [00:01:56] Speaker 2: Well, they cherry-picked a few little, you know, how many years before the Arctic is ice-free. [00:02:04] Speaker 4: Kilimanjaro. [00:02:05] Speaker 2: Kilimanjaro, the snows of Kilimanjaro are complicated for sure. The main elements, as the scientific community has been very generous to confirm, are right. [00:02:17] Speaker 3: And Gore is right, a majority of the science in An Inconvenient Truth has come to fruition or is on track to do so. The last 11 years have been the 11 hottest years on record. In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore talks about warming oceans causing hurricanes to be more destructive. Today, we have seen an increase in rapid intensification in hurricanes, climate scientists linking that to warming ocean waters. When Gore got on that cherry-picker to show us how much CO2 would rise in less than 50 years. [00:02:54] Speaker 2: It's already right here. [00:02:57] Speaker 3: Back then, we were at around 380 parts per million. Right now, we're at more than 430 parts per million. When you were on the machine, on the cherry-picker machine, and you're going up and showing the CO2, we haven't made it to quite that level, but there's a reason. [00:03:15] Speaker 2: The fact that most all of the new electricity generation is coming in the form of renewables, that has changed what the economists are predicting about how much more fossil fuel use we will use in the years ahead. And that's very good news. But that is not to say that it's in any way been solved. It hasn't. Because the medium projections, as they call them, are still catastrophic. [00:03:44] Speaker 3: You say the climate crisis is a moral and spiritual issue, not a political one. Do you still believe that? [00:03:51] Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. And I put it in the context of all of the other morally-based challenges that humanity has confronted, the abolition of slavery, the women's rights and women's suffrage. The U.S. is hurting, we are hurting ourselves by pretending that it's not real and that we don't need to do anything about it. [00:04:14] Speaker 3: Gore says the current administration is setting us back. You've spent time in the Senate, obviously the White House. Are the current deregulations and the things that are being pulled back worse than ever before, or does it just feel that way? [00:04:26] Speaker 2: The cancellations of sensible programs and the elimination of regulations to reduce this pollution, it's worse now than it's ever been, for sure. We're seeing unthinkable changes. [00:04:40] Speaker 3: Can the clean energy transition handle four years of turning away? [00:04:45] Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it is important to note that the United States is in a bubble because of Trump. And 195 countries signed the historic Paris Agreement. Only one withdrew, the U.S. And one of my friends in Europe keeps pointing out that 195 minus one doesn't equal zero. [00:05:07] Speaker 3: In announcing its plan to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and other international environmental agreements, the Trump administration said the agreements, quote, do not reflect our country's values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives, end quote. Adding that agreements don't merit taxpayer money. Gore says the market is talking. [00:05:29] Speaker 2: Even here in the U.S., take a look at one number. If you look at all of the new electricity generating capacity newly installed last year, 2025, people are surprised to learn that the amount made up by renewables and rooftop and battery is 94% of the total. That's wild. [00:05:51] Speaker 3: In May, and for the first time in U.S. history, solar power overtook coal when it comes to power generation. Is AI a nuclear bomb for the climate crisis? And is that in a good way or a bad way? [00:06:05] Speaker 2: It's cause for deep concern, but not panic. There are other sources that can easily be addressed quickly. For example, all of the AI data centers put together in the world, their emissions are way less than the emissions from uncovered landfills. [00:06:25] Speaker 3: Gore loves driving his electric utility vehicle around the farm, taking me down to one of his favorite spots. What do you call this place? If we can get out and see it. If we can get out and see it. [00:06:35] Speaker 2: Well, back of the farm. [00:06:39] Speaker 4: The back of the farm. [00:06:40] Speaker 2: Yeah. [00:06:40] Speaker 4: We've made it to the back of the farm. [00:06:41] Speaker 2: Well, the kids will call it the echo bluff sometimes. [00:06:44] Speaker 4: Okay. [00:06:46] Speaker 2: You can try it. [00:06:47] Speaker 4: The echo bluff? Yeah. How do we do it? Right against there? Yeah. Just yell? [00:06:52] Speaker 2: Yeah. Short, short, short burst. [00:06:57] Speaker 3: Climb it! [00:06:59] Speaker 2: Worked. There you go. Hey! [00:07:01] Speaker 3: Since Gore's film debuted, we have another two decades of evidence, and it all points to the same thing. The average temperature of the planet is going up. We are driving it. And we can take steps to make it better or slow it down. [00:07:16] Speaker 2: I have a lot of faith in human nature at its core. You look around the world and you see so many bad things going on, but most people are not like that. I mean, I have a lot of confidence that over time we are going to come to a consensus around the world that we just have to save this.