Gore says more support needed in fight against global warming

Jun 8, 2010, 14:21 GMT

   Manila - Former US vice president and environmentalist Al Gore on Tuesday stressed the need for more people to support efforts to fight global warming and mitigate its adverse impacts.

   At a forum in Manila, Gore urged everyone to be part of the solution and look at the fight as an obligation to keep the planet healthy and safe for the next generation.

   Gore noted that while awareness about climate change has increased globally and change has come about in many ways, more work was needed to be done especially by governments around the world.

   'The policies and the laws have not yet been changed and the emissions are continuing to increase,' he said.

   'When enough people demand change, then the political system can move quickly,' he added. 'I keep waiting for that threshold and I think we are close.'

   'When enough people are willing to help, then we will succeed.'

   Gore warned that with the concentration of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, increasing every year, the situation was 'getting worse at a faster rate.'

   He cited stronger typhoons, worsening droughts, resurgence of diseases and extinctions of species as among the alarming impacts of global warming.

   Despite the grim warnings, Gore said he believed that the situation was not yet hopeless but warned that if trends do not change, 'we run the serious risk of making it irreversible.'

   Outside the venue of the forum, animal rights activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) held a protest with one of them dressed as a 'gassy cow.'

   PETA criticised Gore for being a 'meat-eating environmentalist' and urged him to go vegetarian.

   'An Inconvenient Toot: Cow Gas is Killing the Planet,' read a placard carried by a PETA member dressed as a cow.

   'It's hard to speak about the dire consequences of climate change with a steak stuffed in our mouth,' PETA director Jason Barker said in a statement.

   Barker noted that raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

   Gore said he has been working to 'offset' his carbon footprint especially when he travels around the world to speak about global warming.

   'I do walk the walk, not just talk the talk,' he said to applause and laughter. 'I'm not a vegetarian and I don't intend to be one but I eat less meat now.'