Former Vice President Al Gore will be giving his first major speech of the 2005 year next Wednesday when he speaks about the looming climate crisis.
Information is as follows:
Topic: Global Climate Crisis
Date: February 16th
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: Beverly Hilton Hotel
Location: Los Angeles, California
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/02/ale05029.htmlGore: Bush Administration displays "a stunning display of moral cowardice" dealing with Global Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol
Former VP Al Gore to Give Speech Tomorrow on Significance of Kyoto Protocol, Global Climate Change and a Push for Auto Industry Compliance with State Laws Requiring More Efficient Vehicles
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
In an advance phone call with BuzzFlash and other selected members of the press, former Vice President Al Gore announced a major speech in Los Angeles on Wednesday, February 16, 2004, about the importance of the Kyoto Protocol going into effect, President Bush's leadership vacuum on the issue, and new efforts to get the auto industry to drop its lawsuit against California and other states that are enacting laws to force the auto industry to create vehicles that pollute less.
"During the seven years since Kyoto was first drafted," Gore said, "we've learned a great deal: 1. The scientific evidence for global warming is stronger (in a study, in Science Magazine, of 928 peer-reviewed articles on global warming, not a single one disagreed that current climate change is caused by human actions); 2. scientists returning from Greenland reported dramatic changes in the ice cap; and 3. in the last seven years we have learned that industry solutions are cheaper and easier than thought when Kyoto was first drafted."
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol officially begins on Wednesday, February 16, 2004, becoming the world's "first legally binding effort to deal with the climate crisis," Gore said. It will be the first of many efforts that will follow and build on the Protocol.
The effort to get the auto industry to drop its lawsuit against California, New York and other northeast states is an effort to ask the auto industry to "innovate, not litigate" and to "stop suing the future and start building the future," said Gore. California plans on requiring the auto industry to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2016. Vehicle carbon dioxide emissions are linked to global warming.
Critics of the Kyoto Protocol have said the Protocol will have little effect. Gore contends that like the 1987 "Montreal Protocol" <"...On Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer," like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)>, the Kyoto Protocol will provide the "maximum politically feasible" laws at this time. More importantly, he added, that legal foundation will allow the world to toughen the requirements in the future, as the world did with the 1990 "London Amendment," (to the Montreal Protocol) which resulted in "the very rapid phasing out of
."
1997 Kyoto Protocol is "a real crisis, desperately needing leadership from the President," yet his financial supporters in the oil and coal industries don't want him to acknowledge the crisis, Gore said, "so he pretends it doesn't exist."
"Bush directs the nation to false crises, but ignores this real crisis," said Gore, calling Bush's efforts enabling global climate change "a stunning display of moral cowardice."
Asked if the Protocol will be effective without U.S. participation, Gore said that eventually, the U.S. must participate. All companies based in the U.S. must comply with respect to their operations in the other countries. That process will accelerate, so the dynamic created will eventually lead our country to join.
BuzzFlash will post more information on Gore's speech when it becomes available.