Donald Trump can’t stop green revolution, says Al Gore

Former US vice president Al Gore says the Trump administration has ‘limited’ ability to stop the ‘sustainability revolution’.

Former US vice president Al Gore gives a press conference on the sidelines of a meeting of The Climate Reality Project NGO in Paris, on Saturday. Picture: AFP

Former US vice president Al Gore on Saturday condemned President Donald Trump’s “extremely hostile” stance on fighting climate change, but said his administration had “limited” ability to stop the “sustainability revolution”.

“I don’t want to minimise the difficulties presented by the new administration in the US that is extremely hostile to anything that would help us solve the climate crisis,” Mr Gore said.

“However, I think that their ability to slow the sustainability revolution is limited.”

Mr Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, then gained new fame as an environmentalist with the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said he wanted to avoid “what my kids call toxic positivity”.

But despite what he called alarming signals from the Trump administration on freedom of speech, scientific research and climate issues, he sounded a largely upbeat note on the bigger picture.

“We are already seeing many of Donald Trump’s executive orders overturned by the courts. And to those who worry that he will disobey court orders, I think that is unlikely in the end.

“He will give the impression that he disrespects the court and may not obey court orders, but public opinion in the United States among Republicans as well as Democrats ... is strongly in support of the rule of law and the necessity of government officials, including the president, obeying orders from the federal judiciary.”

AFP