Al Gore was in Australia this week and I got the chance to catch up with him.

He granted the interview on the strict condition that I was not to ask him the obvious question about his plans for 2008. But with only 15 minutes interview time, I didn't get much of a chance to get that one in anyway!

So we talked about the great ethical issue now: climate change. You can find the interview in The Age here and here. The second link has some neat audio of the interview, so you can listen in.

Check this Q&A I had with him.



Q: The response to your film has been quite extraordinary. Were you expecting this?

Gore: No, in fact it wasn't even my idea to do the movie. I was sceptical that there should even be an effort to make a movie. I'm tempted to say yes, I knew it all along and I wish I had. I've been extremely grateful for the response that's come, and may I say right here in Australia. There have been other countries, including my own, where there has been a very strong response but Australia has had a special feeling and flavour to it. The enthusiasm that I can sense and the comments from people who walk up to me on the sidewalk, I am just so grateful for the openness with which so many people have received the message of the movie.

Q: Last night the Prime Minister was on television and he made a remark about how you came across as a peeved politician. Do you have comment on that?

Gore: It may be one of those elements that may be in the eye of the beholder

Q: John Howard is talking about a new Kyoto. What are your views that? Should we have a new Kyoto or should we sign Kyoto as it is?

Gore: Of course I think you should join Kyoto, I think the United States should join Kyoto but I do understand having demonised the treaty, it will be difficult for either John Howard or George W Bush to turn around and embrace it full on but there is an alternative. Obviously neither Australia nor the United States can write its own little treaty and be separate from the rest of the world. If that's the option under discussion, that's probably not realistic. There is a third path and that is to actually join the worldwide discussion now in Nairobi on how to strengthen Kyoto and how to make whatever changes Prime Minister Howard wants to advocate and then join the rest of the world community. That's the test. I think it's extremely important that the Prime Minister has acknowledged in his words words damaging increases in Co2. He's acknowledged that fact and that's important. And all kidding aside, I am genuinely grateful to him for taking the time to watch my movie.

Q: Would a new Kyoto work? You would have to everyone involved in that? So you couldn't just go and sign your own?

Gore: A few years ago, an official in the Bush administration uttered a famous phrase that became emblematic of the Bush-Cheney problems when he said we create our own reality. If one tries to create one's own global treaty without the rest of the world being part of it that's not quite as bad as trying to create one's own reality or King Canute trying to command the tides. It's not that bad. But I think he has left a trail of bread crumbs back to the global reality but he should go back to it and join the process. I hope he will. Let me just say I want to be respectful of the Prime Minister's change in rhetoric. It's not easy to do something like that and I want to be respectful of the possibility that this position is a way station for him on the real road to Damascus where he joins the world community and he may. I don't know, I can't look into his heart.

Q: Nuclear energy. Is that a possibility? What are your feelings about that as an alternative?

Gore: A writer Bill McKibben said we don't have a silver bullet, we have silver buckshot and I do think nuclear power for some countries will be part of the buckshot but I don't think it's likely to play a significantly increased role.

Q: Why is that?

Gore: Because there are a number of problems that are difficult to solve. Even if you set aside the problem of long-term waste-storage and the danger of operator accident and the vulnerability to terrorist attack, let's just assume that all three of those can be solved, you still have two others that are more difficult. The principle one is economics. Nuclear power plants are the costliest to build and they take the longest time and at present they come in only one size - extra large. And the uncertainty in the future of energy demand especially when prices are rising means that utility executives want to keep more of their options open, they don't want to bet their entire construction budget on the most expensive largest increment that takes the longest time to build. The final problem is nuclear weapons proliferation. For eight years when I was in the White House, every problem of weapons proliferation was connected to a reactor program.

Q: Let me talk about your time in the White House. Against your boss's advisers, you pushed through a carbon tax. It was watered down in Congress to a 5 cents per gallon gasoline tax. Two years later, we got Newt Gingrich

Gore: And that was certainly one of the reasons why.

Q: The question is would the public be prepared to pay the cost of a carbon tax now?

Gore: What I propose is a revenue neutral change in the tax system in my country. Although other countries have very different situations, I recommend it elsewhere. I recommend a reduction in all employment based taxes down to zero and replace that, dollar for dollar with pollution taxes including principally a CO2 tax so the overall amount is the same. You can have adjustment programs for those industries and sectors that are disadvantaged by the shift but we should encourage employment and discourage the destruction of the planet.

Q: So you're saying the only way is to lower the other taxes?

Gore: I think that's fair. Whether it's feasible or not depends on how the political system changes and develops. Right now it's no considered within the realm of feasibility. The political system can't digest it now but as public awareness and this sense of urgency increases, what now seems unfeasible may well become imperative.

Q: But Americans don't seem to have a concept of anything being revenue neutral.

Gore: Yes, the clever political tacticians will say they will never believe that. They will just hear the word tax and that will be the end of it. But I have often thought that in order to solve the climate crisis we will also have to address the democracy crisis. And what I mean by that is that the level and quality and integrity of the democratic discourse has to be elevated. We cannot chart our future on 30 second television commercials and short sound bites. We have to be able to have a conversation in our democracies about our future, a conversation that is rich enough and subtle enough to allow a full discussion of what the real options are. If we just throw buzzwords at one another, we will not solve our problems. If we change that, and we can, then we will solve our problems.

Q: Let me got to Nairobi.

Gore: Do you have to leave now?

Q: In Nairobi this week, Surya Sethi, the principal adviser to the Indian Government said we have to grow at 8 per cent in order to drag people out of poverty. China refuses to grow at anything less than 10 per cent. China and India are now catching up with the US as the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters. What's your take on that? And secondly, if that's right, do we have to make a choice here between carbon reduction and poverty reduction?

Gore: No we don't. The very definition of the word grow should be examined. In fact in China they are examining. They have now ordered, as part of the five year plan, a recalculation of the way GDP is measured. With the problem of the notorious externalities, they can be integrated more fully into the way we measure what is progress and what is not. If growth is calculated in ways that completely ignore the value of being able to breathe clean air, or being able to have an adequate water supply, then it is an artificial measurement. What is the value to Australia of having enough water behind the dams? What is the value of avoiding this horrific drought in the future? What is the value of preserving the absolutely unique forms of life on this continue? None of those things are included. What is the value of not having more wildfires in the state of Victoria? Those things are not valued now. If you have growth at the expense of more drought, more fires, more tropical diseases, stronger storms, less water, then that's not really the kind of growth that people want. And poor people in less developed nations depend more on nature for their daily sustenance than we do in these industrialised societies.

Q: The British business magazine The Business has reported that a leaked draft of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change upcoming Fourth Assessment Report calculates that achieving the goal of limiting greenhouse gases to 550 ppm could cost as much as 5 percent of global GDP.

Gore: The Stern report is far more authoritative than a leaked document which may or may not have any validity at all. In advance of every IPCC report, there have been some anti environment strategic distorted versions that are out to play that game, and I don't buy it at all. The Stern report is the most authoritative treatment.

Q: When the Democrats took control of Congress earlier this month, the share price of renewable energy companies went up. But the trouble is that a lot of the renewable energy technology is still in development stage. Is renewable energy a viable proposition?

Gore: Some are competitive right now. Wind energy is mainstream and competitive and (the Australian state of ) Victoria is well positioned to benefit as the world picks up on that option. Voltaic (solar energy) cell energy is near too. And venture capitalists are pouring money into extremely new away of making it competitive. Renewable energy will play a significant role has a growing role. Conservation and efficiency will play an even more important role.