Twenty-five years ago, Al Gore was in the final stretch of his U.S. presidential campaign, just weeks away from an election that would ultimately slip through his fingers despite winning the popular vote. His platform included ambitious climate action, with America positioned as the natural leader of a global environmental transition.
The irony of what has transpired since is not lost on him. “Looking from the standpoint of 25 years ago, I have to say no, I would not have seen this as the most likely outcome,” Gore admits when asked about China’s emergence as the world’s leading force in the energy transition, a reality that would have seemed almost fantastical to the candidate who once hoped to steer American climate policy from the Oval Office.
But Gore isn’t lamenting China’s climate leadership so much as celebrating that someone is stepping up while expressing frustration that America has ceded the field. As far as he’s concerned, the planet doesn’t care which country leads the charge toward sustainability as long as someone does. What troubles him more is the opportunity cost, the sense that American innovation and influence could be accelerating global progress if the country weren’t busy dismantling its own climate policies.
Gore and Lila Preston of sustainability-focused investment firm Generation Investment Management talked with this editor early Monday morning about their ninth annual climate report, which comprehensively documents both concerning setbacks in U.S. climate policy and China’s remarkable rise as what they call the world’s “first electro state.”
We spent much of our conversation examining what’s making headlines right now: the tech industry’s growing appetite for rare earth minerals and what responsible mining might look like, how the …