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| Al Gore and filmmakers talk to the press about climate change in Cannes Photo: Richard Mowe |
More than a decade after the release of the groundbreaking film An Inconvenient Truth which won two Oscars, former vice president Al Gore is back at the Cannes Film Festival with a new film about the climate crisis, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power.
It takes the pulse of what has been achieved in the intervening years, especially since the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015 which went ahead despite the terror attacks.
“The difference now is that we have the solutions but we have to summon up the political goodwill to put them in to practice,” said Gore at a media gathering in that citadel of luxury The Carlton Hotel, a Riviera beacon.
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| Al Gore in Cannes Photo: Richard Mowe |
Despite the advent of the Trump administration Gore remains optimistic that the situation can be turned in reverse. “We visited Georgetown in Texas, one of the most conservative cities in America. where the city council has introduce a policy of 100 per cent renewables.
“It wasn’t so much an environmental decision but because it is now cheaper to get electricity from the wind, sun and sea than the dirt polluting fuels of the past. I think many of the American people want to continue to make progress,” Gore pointed out.
He underlined that many of the predictions in the first film had come to pass. Indeed the timing of the flooding of the 9/11 site in New York came much more quickly than scientists had predicted.
Although he has no concrete evidence for his assertion Gore believes that President Trump may surprise many by keeping the US in the Paris agreement. “There is a trend across the States and there has also been a shift in Congress to the cause,” he said.
He hoped the film would encourage people to become more personally involved in encouraging governments to move faster and to organise themselves at grassroots level. “I have great hope that democracy will be revivified in the process,” e concluded.
In a nod to his French hosts Gore expressed delight about the election of President Macron and his naming of green activist Nicholas Hulot as his environment minister. “Statements already made indicate that President Macron will give climate change a top priority status. His policy announcements have been truly inspiring.”
An Inconvenient Sequel which premiered today (May 22) at the Cannes Film Festival is released on July 28 in the States and August 25 in the UK.
