Al Gore says 20 years after ‘An Inconvenient Truth’

Scientists were right about climate change all along, former Vice President Al Gore said on the 20th anniversary of the release of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Oscar-winning documentary about Gore’s campaign to educate people about climate change.

When asked by ABC News chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent Ginger Zee whether the movie and its predictions about global warming were valid, Gore said, “Unfortunately, yes.”

“The scientists were absolutely right about all the important elements of this issue, and it’s truly insane that we continue to use the sky as an open sewer and trap an amount of heat every day equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding on Earth every day,” Gore said in an interview with ABC News at his family farm in Tennessee. he said.

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One review of significant allegations ABC News found that many of the scientific observations made in “An Inconvenient Truth” have come to fruition or continue to do so in the coming years, according to the documentary. The past 11 years, from 2015 to 2025, have been the warmest years on record, according to scientific data from NOAA and the Copernicus Climate Change Service, summarized in a report published earlier this year. World Meteorological Organization.

In the film, Gore also discussed how warming oceans will cause hurricanes to become more destructive. Over the past decade, climate scientists have added to the growing evidence that human-caused warming is causing global warming. more severe storms and allows tropical cyclones to intensify rapidly as they approach land.

Gore also announced in the film that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will rise to 500 parts per million (ppm) within 50 years. In 2006, CO2 emissions were approximately 380 ppm. Currently CO2 emissions are more than 430 ppm; that is, more than 50% higher than pre-Industrial Revolution levels. NOAA.

Gore said the planet does not meet the 500 ppm threshold due to the amount of new electricity generation coming from renewable energy.

“This changed economists’ predictions about how much more fossil fuel we’ll be using in the coming years, and that’s very good news,” Gore said.

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In May, solar power produced more energy than coal in the United States for the first time in history, according to a report by . BlindA think tank focused on the transition to clean energy.

However, Gore added that this does not mean that the CO2 emissions problem is solved.

The film won two Academy Awards in 2007: one for Best Documentary Feature and the other for Best Original Song for “I Need to Wake Up” performed by American singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge.

However, the film faced criticism upon its release, with some critics accusing it of being alarmist or exaggerated.

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When asked by Zee why there was so much focus on “what’s wrong” with the film, Gore said critics “inadvertently singled out” some facts, such as how many years before the Arctic will be ice-free. In the film, it is stated that the North Pole, the fastest warming region in the world, may be ice-free within five years. Although ice still exists in the Arctic, sea ice cover has rapidly diminished and nearly all of the “old” ice, the thickest sea ice, has disappeared, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report; There has been a decline of more than 95% since the 1980s. 2025 Arctic Report Card.

The current administration is trailing the United States in decarbonizing the economy. cancel “sensible programs” eliminate regulations Gore said pollution should be reduced and the United States should be removed from the Paris Agreement, the international agreement aimed at combating climate change by keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In announcing its plan to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and other international environmental agreements, the Trump Administration said the agreements “do not reflect our country’s values ​​or our contributions to economic and environmental goals.” They added that the deals were not worth taxpayers’ money.

“The United States is suffering,” Gore said. “We’re hurting ourselves by acting like this isn’t real and we don’t need to do anything about it.”

But Gore said the market “has spoken.” renewable energy about 90% New electricity generation in 2025. In May 2026, Solar energy produced more energy More than coal in the US for the first time.

Gore said that although the emergence of artificial intelligence and the data centers that power it is “a cause for deep concern,” there is no need to panic.

“All the AI ​​data centers in the world put together, their emissions are much less than the emissions from open-top landfills,” Gore said. “If we want to reduce emissions, this is an example of a bigger, easier place to start than data centers.”

Gore also said AI could be an opportunity to significantly reduce emissions by eliminating “inefficiencies that are invisible without AI.”

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Gore, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2007 “for their efforts to create and disseminate greater knowledge about human-caused climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures needed to counter such change.”

In the film, Gore describes climate change as a moral and spiritual problem rather than a political problem. Asked if Zee still believed that, Gore replied: “Absolutely.”

“I put this in the context of all the other morally based challenges facing humanity: abolition, women’s rights, and women’s suffrage,” Gore said.

ABC News’ Weather, Climate and Science Unit contributed to this report.