Gore Defends Chinese Position on Fighting Global Warming
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 08 February 2007

Says emerging economies are justified in holding back until richer polluters do more.

    Madrid - Emerging economies such as China are justified in holding back on fighting greenhouse gas emissions until richer polluters like the United States do more to solve the problem, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said Wednesday.

    The world's top climate scientists warned in a report last week global warming is very likely caused by humanity and will last for centuries.

    Chinese officials said they will act after industrial countries such as the United States and others make changes, Mr. Gore said, addressing a conference in Madrid on global warming.

    "They're right in saying that. But we have to act quickly," said Mr. Gore, who was nominated last week for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in drawing attention to global warming.

    "China's reaction to the scientific report last week was disappointing, but it was instructive," Mr. Gore said.

    The United States is the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gas and has refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on curbing such emissions. President George W. Bush contended it would slow the U.S. economy intolerably and should have required reductions by poorer but fast-growing countries, such as China and India.

    Mr. Gore narrated an hour-long slide presentation with graphic evidence of global warming: Antarctic ice shelves cracking and collapsing into the sea, before-and-after shots of glaciers reduced to lakes and small patches of ice and forecasts of heavily populated land masses such as Florida shrinking drastically if glacial meltdown reaches a worst-case scenario and floods the seas.

    "Never before has all of civilization been threatened," Mr. Gore said.

    "We have everything we need to save it, with the possible exception of political will. But political will is a renewable resource."