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In this image from video, taken Nov. 9, 2015, former Vice President Al Gore gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in Nashville, Tenn. After decades of raising alarms about global warming,... (Associated Press) 
  
 NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — After decades of raising alarms about global warming, former Vice President Al Gore is now raising hopes. 
  
 As a top-level international climate summit starts later this month in Paris, Gore — who helped negotiate the 1997 climate treaty that didn't control the problem — is sure this time will be different. 
  
 "I'm optimistic," Gore said in a sit-down interview this week with The Associated Press. "We're going to win this. We need to win it faster because a lot of damage is being done day by day. We continue to put 110 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours as if it's an open sewer." 
  
 In 35 minutes, Gore — portrayed by critics as a preacher of doom and gloom — uses versions of the words "optimistic" or "hopeful" or "positive" at least 16 times. 
  
 Even when he ticks off the alarming impacts of global warming, he finishes with a note of confidence. 
  
 "The number of extremely hot days has multiplied dramatically," Gore said. "The large downpours, floods, mudslides, the deeper and longer droughts, rising sea levels from the melting ice, forest fires, there's a long list of events that people can see and feel viscerally now. Every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation. " 
  
 But he added: "Increasingly people are connecting those dots. And even if they don't use the phrase climate crisis or global warming, more and more people are feeling that this is going to have to be addressed." 
  
 On Friday, Gore will take his mixed message of alarm and hope to Paris, a bit ahead of world leaders. He will host a 24-hour-telethon of sorts from the Eiffel Tower to raise awareness about global warming, featuring Elton John, French President Francois Hollande, actor Jared Leto, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, actor Ryan Reynolds and California Gov. Jerry Brown. 
  
 But he said it's no longer just about convincing people to act — it now makes sense economically, too. He says solar and wind energy is dirt cheap — even free in Texas at certain hours. Businesses and developing countries are taking climate change seriously, he said. 
  
 "There really is a wave in corporate America moving rapidly toward a low carbon economy," Gore said. 
  
 Unlike the Kyoto treaty in 1997, which mandated emission cuts for rich nations but not poor, what's likely out of Paris won't require ratification by the U.S. Senate and is based on countries setting their own goals. And that, Gore insisted, is "more productive." 
  
 But is Gore, himself? 
  
 Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland, said Gore's "role is limited at this point. There was a moment in time when he was pushing a wave of attention." But now, she says, she didn't even know that Gore was organizing his Paris telethon. 
  
 "I never thought of him as central person in the climate movement," Fisher said. 
  
 Gore insists that he is. He said he's trained "many thousands" of activists and still consults with leaders in the U.S. and other governments at all levels. He plans to be at the Paris climate talks "until the last dog dies." 
  
 Some experts suggest Gore's stint as the public face of climate change activism — especially with his 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" — may have turned off some people because the messenger was so associated with Democratic politics. 
  
 "Climate change science is demonized because of Al Gore," said Erik Conway, a NASA historian who co-wrote the book "Merchants of Doubt." Conway doesn't fault Gore, but said, "If John McCain had become the titular leader of the climate change movement instead of Al Gore, we might have a different world." 
  
 But Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard historian who is a co-author of the book with Conway, disagrees. "He's become demonized because he is effective," she said. 
  
 For his part, Gore said, "Whoever becomes highly visible as a spokesman for change gets the slings and arrows and all of the anger directed at the messenger to try to get at the message." 
  
 In addition to his Climate Reality Project, his main advocacy group (which is co-producing the telethon), Gore is chairman of Generation Investment Management, a boutique investment managing firm. He is on Apple's board of directors and is a senior partner at a Kleiner Parkins Caufield & Byers, a major Silicon Valley venture capital fund. 
  
 Fifteen years later, the 67-year-old Gore claims he doesn't dwell on 2000 election, when he won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College: "I started moving forward the day after the Supreme Court decision and I'm excited about the future." 
  
 So was losing the presidency was all for the best? 
  
 "No, I wouldn't say that," Gore said, laughing. "I don't think there's any position with as much potential to create positive change as much as president of the U.S., but that was not to be. I feel very fortunate other ways to make a positive difference." 
  
 Then he returned to the subject of his telethon. Hozier will be among the performers; Gore whips out his iPhone to play the singer's 2014 hit, "Take Me To Church." 
  
 He closed his eyes and listened. The song's final verse: "In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene, only then I am human, only then I am clean." 
  
 ___ 
  
 Online: 
  
 Al Gore's Live Earth: 24 Hours of Reality: https://www.climaterealityproject.org/24hoursofreality 
  
 ___ 
  
 Follow Seth Borenstein at http://twitter.com/borenbears and his work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein ||||| Second round of Live Earth music concerts promised by former US vice-president and Pharrell Williams were due to be broadcasted to billions around the world 
  
 Pharrell Williams and Al Gore’s promise of a second round of Live Earth concerts on seven continents that would be broadcast to an audience of billions has been downgraded to a webcast in Paris, organisers have confirmed. 
  
 Everything you need to know about the Paris climate summit and UN talks Read more 
  
 In January, the duo and producer Kevin Wall used the World Economic Forum in Davos to announce a global event that would reach 2 billion people across 193 television networks, with promotional materials promising 100 artists in seven shows. 
  
 In May organisers delayed the event from a scheduled date of 18 June and said a free, public concert would be held in Paris in the autumn instead. 
  
 But this week organisers told the Guardian that Live Earth had been reduced to an event on the 13 and 14 November at the Champ de Mars in Paris that will be closed to the public and streamed online instead. 
  
 “It is taking a different form this year than the open concert of years past but some great musical talent has signed on to the 24 Hours event,” said a spokeswoman, referring to an annual 24-hour event held by Gore’s NGO, Climate Reality. She added: “We are partnering with several distribution partners worldwide to make sure this is the most accessible 24 Hours event in history.” 
  
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest An inflatable pig floats above the Live Earth New York concert during Pink Floyd member Roger Waters’ set in 2007. Photograph: Mike Segar/REUTERS 
  
 Details of the webcast distribution and the acts performing are due to be announced on Thursday. 
  
 Williams, the project’s creative director, had said in January that: “Instead of just having people perform, we literally are going to have humanity harmonise all at once.” He was one of the performers in the original Live Earth concerts in 2007. 
  
 Next week’s event, dubbed 24 Hours of Reality and Live Earth: The World Is Watching, comes just weeks before world leaders including Barack Obama and Xi Jinping head to Paris for a landmark UN climate change summit. 
  
 Gore said the event is “about mobilising people around the world to help solve the climate crisis and making our voices heard in national capitals and at the negotiating table in Paris.” 
  
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Pussycat Dolls perform at the Live Earth concert at Wembley stadium in London, July 2007. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images 
  
 French president, François Hollande, and the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, will be taking part in the web event, along with former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, journalists, weather presenters, and campaigners. 
  
 Wall said of the new plans: “The climate crisis is grave, so we are harnessing the best content and the latest in mobile, social media, and online distribution to make sure we can connect with people everywhere.” ||||| As UN climate negotiations resume in Bonn, we look at why the crunch Paris climate conference from 30 November to 11 December is so important 
  
 What is happening in Paris this December? 
  
 The governments of more than 190 nations will gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change. 
  
 Why now? 
  
 Current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions run out in 2020, so at Paris governments are expected to produce an agreement on what happens for the decade after that at least, and potentially beyond. 
  
 Emissions trajectory Photograph: Guardian 
  
 Why is this important? 
  
 Scientists have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, we will pass the threshold beyond which global warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible. That threshold is estimated as a temperature rise of 2C above pre-industrial levels, and on current emissions trajectories we are heading for a rise of about 5C. That may not sound like much, but the temperature difference between today’s world and the last ice age was about 5C, so seemingly small changes in temperature can mean big differences for the Earth. 
  
 Why has nobody thought of getting a global agreement on this before now? 
  
 They have: global negotiations on climate change have been carrying on for more than 20 years. The history of climate change goes back much further: in the 19th century, physicists theorised about the role of greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, and several suggested that the warming effect would increase alongside the levels of these gases in the atmosphere. But this was all theoretical. 
  
 Only in the past few decades have scientists begun the measurements necessary to establish a relationship between current carbon levels and temperatures, and the science conducted since then has consistently pointed in one direction: that rising greenhouse gas emissions, arising from our use of fossil fuels and our industries, lead to higher temperatures. 
  
 The hottest year ever around the world – in pictures Read more 
  
 Hasn’t global warming stopped? 
  
 No. Global temperatures have been on a clear upward path. There was a spike in 1998, after which temperatures were lower – but still warmer than previous decades – that led some climate sceptics to claim that the world was cooling. 
  
 During the period since 1998, global temperatures have risen at a slower pace than they did in the previous 30 years. That, too, has been seized upon by sceptics as evidence that global warming has “paused”. 
  
 But it is important to note that temperatures have not fallen, or stalled – they have continued to rise. Given the variations that characterise our weather systems, a period in which the rate of warming slowed is not unexpected. 
  
 For the past two years, the rate of warming seems to have accelerated again, but little can be construed from that. 
  
 What progress have we seen on a global agreement? 
  
 In 1992, governments met in Rio de Janeiro and forged the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That agreement, still in force, bound governments to take action to avoid dangerous climate change, but did not specify what actions. Over the following five years, governments wrangled over what each should do, and what should be the role of developed countries versus poorer nations. 
  
 Those years of argument produced, in 1997, the Kyoto protocol. That pact required worldwide cuts in emissions of about 5%, compared with 1990 levels, by 2012, and each developed country was allotted a target on emissions reductions. But developing countries, including China, South Korea, Mexico and other rapidly emerging economies, were given no targets and allowed to increase their emissions at will. 
  
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest People sign the Earth pledge made at the the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992. Photograph: UN Photo 
  
 Al Gore, then US vice-president, signed up to the protocol, but it was quickly apparent that it would never be ratified by the US Congress. Legally, the protocol could not come into force until countries representing 55% of global emissions had ratified it. With the US – then the world’s biggest emitter – on the outside, that was not going to happen. 
  
  
  
 So for most of the following decade, the Kyoto protocol remained in abeyance and global climate change negotiations ground to a near-halt. But in late 2004, Russia decided to pass the treaty – unexpectedly, and as part of a move to have its application for World Trade Organisation membership accepted by the European Union. That made up the weight needed, and the protocol finally came into force. 
  
 So we had a global agreement? 
  
 Not quite. The US, under George W Bush, remained firmly outside Kyoto, so although the UN negotiations carried on year after year, the US negotiators were often in different rooms from the rest of the world. It was clear a new approach was needed that could bring the US in, and encourage the major developing economies – especially China, now the world’s biggest emitter – to take on limits to their emissions. 
  
 What followed was, agreed at Bali in 2007 after much drama, an action plan that set the world on the course to a new agreement that would take over from Kyoto. 
  
 This is taking a long time. What happened next? 
  
 It did take a long time. But getting agreement from 196 countries was never going to be easy. The next act of this long-running drama fully demonstrated that: the Copenhagen conference of 2009. 
  
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest US president Barack Obama along with European leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel, centre, attend negotiations on the final night of the Copenhagen UN Climate Change summit in Denmark on 18 December 2009. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images 
  
 What happened at Copenhagen? 
  
 Everything but the treaty. All of the world’s developed countries and the biggest developing countries agreed – for the first time – to limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. This was a landmark, as it meant the world’s biggest emitters were united towards a single goal. 
  
 The emissions reductions agreed on were still not enough to meet scientific advice, but they were a big advance on reducing emissions compared with “business as usual”. 
  
 But what didn’t happen turned out to be the point that NGOs and many in the press seized on. What didn’t happen was a fully articulated and legally binding treaty. 
  
 Is that important? 
  
 It depends on your viewpoint. The Kyoto protocol was a beautifully written, watertight, fully legally binding international treaty, a sub-treaty of the similarly binding UNFCCC. But it never met its objectives, because it wasn’t ratified by the US, and not by Russia until it was too late. And none of the countries that failed to meet their commitments under Kyoto have been sanctioned. 
  
 The Copenhagen agreement, on the other hand, was not fully adopted by the UN in 2009 because of last-minute chaos at the conference, though it was ratified the following year in the form of the Cancun agreements. For this reason, the Copenhagen agreement was derided as a failure by green groups. 
  
 But the targets agreed at Copenhagen, in the form of a document signed by world leaders, still stand. 
  
 Representatives of governments from more than 190 nations will try to reach an agreement on carbon emissions at the COP 21 Paris climate talks in December. Photograph: COP21 
  
 What is likely to be agreed in Paris? 
  
 We know already what the biggest emitters have committed to. The EU will cut its emissions by 40%, compared with 1990 levels, by 2030. The US will cut its emissions by 26% to 28%, compared with 2005 levels, by 2025. China will agree that its emissions will peak by 2030. 
  
 Nations responsible for more than 90% of global emissions have now come up with their targets – known in the UN jargon as Indended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs . These include all of the major developed and developing countries, though their contributions vary: in the case of developed countries, actual cuts in emissions, but for developing countries a range of targets including limits on emissions compared to “business as usual”, and pledges to increase low-carbon energy or preserve forests. 
  
 Analysis of the INDCS, endorsed by the UN, has suggested that these pledges are enough to hold the world to about 2.7C or 3C of warming. That is not quite enough to meet the scientific advice. However, that is not the end of the story. One of the key components of any Paris agreement would be to institute a system of review of the emissions targets every five years, with a view to ratcheting them upwards. 
  
 Another, and complementary, approach is to make more effort to bring down emissions outside the UN process, for instance by engaging “non-state actors” such as cities, local governments and businesses to do more. 
  
 If the commitments from the major countries are in the bag, does that mean the Paris agreement is settled? 
  
 Not at all – the other key question, apart from emissions reductions, is finance. Poorer countries want the rich world to provide them with financial help that will enable them to invest in clean technology to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and to adapt their infrastructure to the likely damage from climate change. 
  
 This is a hugely contentious issue. At Copenhagen, where the finance part of the deal was only sorted out at the very last minute, rich countries agreed to supply $30bn ($20bn) of “fast-start” financial assistance to the poor nations, and they said that by 2020, financial flows of at least $100bn a year would be provided. 
  
 As a cornerstone of any Paris agreement, poor countries want assurances that this pledge will be met. That has now been given, in several forms: the OECD issued a report in October showing that two thirds of the finance required is already being supplied; and a report by the World Resources Institute showed that the remainder can be made up by increased finance from the World Bank and other development banks, and from the private sector. The World Bank and several governments have already committed to upping their financial assistance, meaning that a clear path towards the 2020 target can now be discerned. 
  
 There is more, however. Poor nations also want a similar provision in place beyond 2020, but there is strong disagreement over how this should be done. Some want all the money to come from rich country governments, but those governments are adamant that they will not provide such funding solely from the public purse. They want international development banks, such as the World Bank, to play a role, and they want most of the funding to come from the private sector. 
  
 An agreement on this is still possible, but it will be one of the main obstacles to a Paris deal. 
  
 Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure Read more 
  
 Will world leaders go to Paris to agree on this? 
  
 Yes. The heads of state or government of more than 130 countries have already said they will come. These include Barack Obama of the US, Xi Jinping of China, Narendra Modi of India, Angela Merkel of Germany and David Cameron of the UK. None have as yet pulled out as a result of the terrorist attacks on Paris, and security has been stepped up as an assurance. Unlike the Copenhagen talks, however, at which world leaders turned up at the last minute of the two weeks of talks to find their negotiating teams in chaos and without a clear agreement for them to sign, this time the leaders will arrive at the beginning of the conference, give their negotiating teams clear instructions, and expect a fully formed agreement at the end of it. 
  
 On behalf of the French government, the conference will be led by foreign minister Laurent Fabius, and environment minister Segolene Royal, but the French president Francois Hollande will also play a key role. They are all confident that a deal can be made. 
  
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest French president Francois Hollande. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer /Pool/EPA 
  
 What else can we expect before Paris? 
  
 The key question now is over security. With the French capital under recent attack, and reports of fresh assaults averted by the armed forces, the atmosphere in Paris will be unlike any city that has hosted major international talks before. Security will be paramount - the French police and army will be on the streets, and the venue will be patrolled by uniformed UN guards - but the atrocities of 13 November will hang heavily on all delegates. This may mean that when world leaders attend private meetings, terrorism is discussed before climate change. But it may also mean that delegates are under more pressure than ever to come up with a deal, given the tragic circumstances surrounding them. 
  
 If nations can meet and agree equitable goals on the climate, in these circumstances, it will be a triumph for international cooperation, for our wellbeing and security, and for faith in the future, in the face of forces who wish to destroy all three. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. |||||
– The 1997 Kyoto climate treaty he helped negotiate didn't end up controlling climate change, but Al Gore says this month's conference in Paris will be different. "We're going to win this," he tells the AP. "We need to win it faster because a lot of damage is being done day by day. We continue to put 110 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours as if it's an open sewer." Though he says "every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation," he adds "increasingly people are connecting those dots" and "more and more people are feeling that this is going to have to be addressed." It's a real change of tune for a man the AP notes has been framed as a "preacher of doom and gloom" by some. Indeed, in their 35 minutes together, Gore "uses versions of the words 'optimistic' or 'hopeful' or 'positive' at least 16 times," writes the AP. Their talk comes in advance of a 24-hour-telethon he'll host Friday at the foot of the Eiffel Tower to raise awareness about global warming. Though initially scheduled as a global Live Earth event to be broadcast to 2 billion people across 193 television networks, Gore now says 24 Hours of Reality and Live Earth will be streamed online and is "about mobilizing people around the world ... and making our voices heard in national capitals and at the negotiating table in Paris," per the Guardian. (The UN Conference on Climate Change kicks off Nov. 30.) French President Francois Hollande, Pharrell Williams, Elton John, Duran Duran, Bon Jovi, Neil Young, Fall Out Boy, Hozier, Ryan Reynolds, and Jared Leto will also take the stage, per People.
Sammanfatta denna artikel: I denna bild från video, tagen 9 nov 2015, tidigare vicepresident Al Gore gester under en intervju med The Associated Press i Nashville, Tenn. Efter årtionden av väckarlarm om global uppvärmning,... (Associated Press) NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — Efter årtionden av väckande larm om global uppvärmning, tidigare vicepresident Al Gore väcker nu förhoppningar. Som en toppnivå internationella klimattoppmötet startar senare denna månad i Paris, Gore — som hjälpte till att förhandla om 1997 klimatavtalet som inte kontrollerade problemet — är säker på att den här gången kommer att vara annorlunda. "Jag är optimistisk", sade Gore i en sittintervju denna vecka med The Associated Press. "Vi ska vinna det här. Vi måste vinna det snabbare eftersom mycket skada sker dag för dag. Vi fortsätter att placera 110 miljoner ton global uppvärmningsföroreningar i atmosfären varje dygn som om det vore en öppen kloak." På 35 minuter använder Gore – som av kritiker framställs som en predikant av undergång och dysterhet – versioner av orden "optimistisk" eller "hoppfull" eller "positiv" minst 16 gånger. Till och med när han sätter fart på de oroväckande effekterna av den globala uppvärmningen, avslutar han med en ton av tillförsikt. "Antalet extremt varma dagar har mångdubblats dramatiskt", sade Gore. "De stora störtregnen, översvämningarna, jordskreden, den djupare och längre torkan, stigande havsnivåer från den smältande isen, skogsbränderna, det finns en lång lista av händelser som människor kan se och känna visceralt nu. Varje kväll på tv-nyheterna är som en naturvandring genom Uppenbarelseboken. " Men han tillade: "Öka människor kopplar ihop dessa punkter. Och även om de inte använder frasen klimatkris eller global uppvärmning känner allt fler att detta måste åtgärdas. På fredag kommer Gore att ta sitt blandade alarm och hopp till Paris, lite före världens ledare. Han kommer att vara värd för en 24-timmarstelethon av olika slag från Eiffeltornet för att öka medvetenheten om den globala uppvärmningen, med Elton John, Frankrikes president Francois Hollande, skådespelare Jared Leto, energiminister Ernest Moniz, tidigare FN-chef Kofi Annan, skådespelare Ryan Reynolds och Kalifornien Gov. Jerry Brown. Men han sade att det inte längre bara handlar om att övertyga människor att agera – det är nu vettigt ekonomiskt också. Han säger att solenergi och vindenergi är smuts billigt — även gratis i Texas vid vissa timmar. Han sade att företagen och utvecklingsländerna tar klimatförändringen på allvar. "Det finns verkligen en våg i företags Amerika som snabbt går mot en ekonomi med låga koldioxidutsläpp", sade Gore. Till skillnad från Kyotoprotokollet 1997, som gav mandat till utsläppsminskningar för rika nationer men inte fattiga, kommer vad som troligen inte från Paris inte att kräva ratificering av USA:s senat och baseras på länder som sätter sina egna mål. Och det, insisterade Gore, är "mer produktivt". Men är Gore, själv? Dana Fisher, chef för programmet för samhälle och miljö vid University of Maryland, sade Gores "roll är begränsad vid denna punkt. Det fanns ett ögonblick då han drev på en våg av uppmärksamhet." Men nu, säger hon, visste hon inte ens att Gore organiserade sin Paris-telethon. "Jag har aldrig tänkt på honom som en central person i klimatrörelsen", sade Fisher. Gore insisterar på att han är det. Han sa att han har tränat "många tusen" aktivister och fortfarande samråder med ledare i USA och andra regeringar på alla nivåer. Han planerar att vara på klimatsamtalen i Paris "tills den sista hunden dör". Vissa experter föreslår Gores stint som det offentliga ansiktet av klimatförändringarna aktivism - särskilt med hans 2006 dokumentär "En obekväm sanning" - kan ha stängt av vissa människor eftersom budbäraren var så associerad med demokratisk politik. "Klimatförändringsvetenskapen är demoniserad på grund av Al Gore", sade Erik Conway, en NASA-historiker som samskrev boken "Merchants of Tvivel". Conway klandrar inte Gore, men sade, "Om John McCain hade blivit klimatrörelsens titulärledare istället för Al Gore, skulle vi kanske ha en annan värld." Men Naomi Oreskes, en Harvardhistoriker som är medförfattare till boken med Conway, håller inte med. "Han har blivit demoniserad för att han är effektiv", sa hon. För sin del sade Gore: "Den som blir mycket synlig som en talesman för förändring får slungarna och pilarna och all ilska riktad mot budbäraren för att försöka komma åt budskapet." Utöver sitt Climate Reality Project, hans främsta intressebevakningsgrupp (som är med och producerar telethon), är Gore ordförande i Generation Investment Management, en boutique investment management byrå. Han sitter i Apples styrelse och är senior partner på en Kleiner Parkins Caufield & Byers, en stor Silicon Valley riskkapitalfond. Femton år senare hävdar den 67-årige Gore att han inte uppehåller sig vid 2000 års val, då han vann folkomröstningen men förlorade valkollegiet: "Jag började gå framåt dagen efter Högsta domstolens beslut och jag är exalterad över framtiden." Var det bäst att förlora presidentposten? »Nej, det skulle jag inte säga», sade Gore och skrattade. "Jag tror inte att det finns någon position med lika stor potential att skapa positiv förändring som president i USA, men det var inte att vara. Jag känner mig väldigt lycklig på andra sätt för att göra en positiv skillnad." Därefter återvände han till ämnet för sin telethon. Hozier kommer att vara bland artisterna; Gore piskar ut sin iPhone för att spela sångerskans hit 2014 "Take Me To Church." Han blundade och lyssnade. Sångens slutvers: "I den där sorgliga jordiska scenens galenskap och jordmån, endast då är jag människa, bara då är jag ren." ___ Online: Al Gore's Live Earth: 24 Hours of Reality: https://www.climaterealityproject.org/24hoursofreality ___ Följ Seth Borenstein på http://twitter.com/borenbears och hans arbete finns på http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein._____ Andra omgången av Live Earth-musikkonserter som tidigare USA:s vicepresident och Pharrell Williams skulle sändas till miljarder världen runt Pharrell Williams och Al Gores löfte om en andra omgång Live Earth-konserter på sju kontinenter som skulle sändas till en publik på miljarder har nedgraderats till en webbsändning i Paris, organisatörer har bekräftat. Allt du behöver veta om klimattoppmötet i Paris och FN-samtal Läs mer I januari använde duon och producenten Kevin Wall World Economic Forum i Davos för att tillkännage ett globalt evenemang som skulle nå 2 miljarder människor över 193 TV-nätverk, med reklammaterial som lovade 100 artister i sju shower. I maj försenade organisatörerna evenemanget från ett planerat datum den 18 juni och sade att en fri, offentlig konsert skulle hållas i Paris på hösten istället. Men den här veckan berättade arrangörerna för Guardian att Live Earth hade reducerats till ett evenemang den 13 och 14 november på Champ de Mars i Paris som kommer att stängas för allmänheten och strömmas online istället. “Det är att ta en annan form i år än den öppna konserten av tidigare år, men några stora musikaliska talanger har skrivit på för 24 Timmar händelsen,” sade en taleskvinna, med hänvisning till ett årligt 24-timmars evenemang som hölls av Gore NGO, Climate Reality. Hon tillade: “Vi samarbetar med flera distributionspartners över hela världen för att se till att detta är den mest tillgängliga 24 Timmar händelsen i historien.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest En uppblåsbar gris flyter ovanför Live Earth New York konsert under Pink Floyd medlem Roger Waters’ set 2007. Fotografi: Mike Segar/REUTERS Detaljer om webbsändningsdistributionen och de handlingar som utförs kommer att tillkännages på torsdag. Williams, projektets kreativa chef, hade sagt i januari att: “I stället för att bara låta folk uppträda, kommer vi bokstavligen att få mänskligheten att harmonisera alla på en gång.” Han var en av artisterna i de ursprungliga Live Earth konserterna 2007. Nästa veckas evenemang, dubbade 24 timmar av verklighet och levande jord: Världen tittar på, kommer bara veckor innan världens ledare, inklusive Barack Obama och Xi Jinping gå till Paris för ett landmärke FN klimatförändringar toppmöte. Gore sa att evenemanget handlar om att mobilisera människor runt om i världen för att hjälpa till att lösa klimatkrisen och göra våra röster hörda i nationella huvudstäder och vid förhandlingsbordet i Paris. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pussycat Dolls uppträder på Live Earth konserten på Wembley stadion i London, juli 2007. Fotografi: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images François Hollande, Frankrikes president, och Paris socialistiska borgmästare Anne Hidalgo, kommer att delta i webbevenemanget tillsammans med FN:s tidigare generalsekreterare Kofi Annan, journalister, väderpresentatörer och kampanjpersoner. Wall sade om de nya planerna: “Klimatkrisen är allvarlig, så vi utnyttjar det bästa innehållet och det senaste inom mobila, sociala medier, och onlinedistribution för att se till att vi kan få kontakt med människor överallt.” . När FN: s klimatförhandlingar återupptas i Bonn, vi tittar på varför kris Paris klimatkonferens 30 november-11 december är så viktigt Vad händer i Paris i december? Regeringarna i mer än 190 länder kommer att samlas i Paris för att diskutera ett eventuellt nytt globalt avtal om klimatförändringar, som syftar till att minska de globala utsläppen av växthusgaser och på så sätt undvika hotet om farliga klimatförändringar. Varför nu? De nuvarande åtagandena om utsläpp av växthusgaser löper ut 2020, så i Paris förväntas regeringarna komma överens om vad som händer under decenniet efter åtminstone, och potentiellt efter det. Emissionsbana Fotografi: Väktare Varför är detta viktigt? Forskare har varnat för att om utsläppen av växthusgaser fortsätter att öka kommer vi att passera den tröskel över vilken den globala uppvärmningen blir katastrofal och oåterkallelig. Denna tröskel uppskattas som en temperaturhöjning på 2C över förindustriella nivåer, och på nuvarande utsläppsbanor är vi på väg mot en ökning på ca 5C. Det kanske inte låter som mycket, men temperaturskillnaden mellan dagens värld och den senaste istiden var omkring 5C, så till synes små temperaturförändringar kan innebära stora skillnader för jorden. Varför har ingen tänkt på att få en global överenskommelse om detta tidigare? De har gjort det: globala förhandlingar om klimatförändringar har pågått i mer än 20 år. Klimatförändringarnas historia går mycket längre tillbaka: på 1800-talet teoretiserade fysiker om växthusgasernas roll, främst koldioxid, i atmosfären, och flera föreslog att uppvärmningseffekten skulle öka vid sidan av nivåerna av dessa gaser i atmosfären. Men allt detta var teoretiskt. Först under de senaste årtiondena har forskare börjat de mätningar som krävs för att fastställa ett samband mellan nuvarande koldioxidnivåer och temperaturer, och den forskning som bedrivits sedan dess har konsekvent pekat i en riktning: att ökande utsläpp av växthusgaser, som uppstår genom vår användning av fossila bränslen och våra industrier, leder till högre temperaturer. Världens hetaste år – på bilder Läs mer Har inte den globala uppvärmningen upphört? - Nej, det gör jag inte. De globala temperaturerna har varit på en klart uppåtgående väg. Det blev en topp 1998, varefter temperaturen var lägre – men ändå varmare än tidigare decennier – vilket fick vissa klimatskeptiker att hävda att världen svalnade. Under perioden sedan 1998 har de globala temperaturerna stigit i långsammare takt än under de föregående 30 åren. Även detta har skeptiker tagit till sig som bevis för att den globala uppvärmningen har ”pauserat”. Men det är viktigt att notera att temperaturen inte har sjunkit, eller stannat – de har fortsatt att stiga. Med tanke på de variationer som kännetecknar våra vädersystem är en period då uppvärmningstakten avtog inte oväntad. Under de senaste två åren tycks uppvärmningstakten ha ökat igen, men det går inte att tolka mycket av det. Vilka framsteg har vi sett när det gäller ett globalt avtal? 1992 träffades regeringarna i Rio de Janeiro och formade FN:s ramkonvention om klimatförändringar. Det avtalet, som fortfarande är i kraft, tvingade regeringarna att vidta åtgärder för att undvika farliga klimatförändringar, men angav inte vilka åtgärder som skulle vidtas. Under de följande fem åren bråkade regeringarna om vad var och en skulle göra, och vilken roll skulle industriländerna spela mot fattigare nationer. Dessa år av argumentation gav 1997 upphov till Kyotoprotokollet. Den pakten krävde världsomfattande utsläppsminskningar på cirka 5 %, jämfört med 1990 års nivåer, till 2012, och varje utvecklat land tilldelades ett mål för utsläppsminskningar. Men utvecklingsländerna, däribland Kina, Sydkorea, Mexiko och andra snabbt framväxande ekonomier, fick inga mål och tilläts att öka sina utsläpp efter behag. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Människor skriver under det jordlöfte som gjordes vid FN:s konferens om miljö och utveckling (UNCED) i juni 1992. Fotografi: FN Photo Al Gore, dåvarande USA:s vicepresident, undertecknade protokollet, men det var snabbt uppenbart att det aldrig skulle ratificeras av USA:s kongress. Lagligt sett kunde protokollet inte träda i kraft förrän länder som står för 55 procent av de globala utsläppen hade ratificerat det. Med USA – då världens största utsläppare – på utsidan, så skulle det inte hända. Så under större delen av det följande årtiondet förblev Kyotoprotokollet i skymundan och de globala klimatförändringsförhandlingarna till en nästan avstannad plats. Men i slutet av 2004 beslutade Ryssland att anta fördraget – oväntat, och som en del av ett steg att få sin ansökan om medlemskap i Världshandelsorganisationen accepterad av Europeiska unionen. Det utgjorde den vikt som behövdes, och protokollet trädde slutligen i kraft. Så vi hade en global överenskommelse? Inte riktigt. USA, under George W Bush, höll sig stadigt utanför Kyoto, så även om FN-förhandlingarna pågick år efter år, befann sig USA:s förhandlare ofta i olika rum från resten av världen. Det stod klart att det behövdes en ny strategi som kunde få USA att komma in och uppmuntra de stora utvecklingsekonomierna – särskilt Kina, som nu är världens största utsläppskälla – att begränsa sina utsläpp. Det som följde var, som man kom överens om på Bali 2007 efter mycket drama, en handlingsplan som satte världen på rätt kurs mot ett nytt avtal som skulle ta över efter Kyoto. Det här tar lång tid. Vad hände sen? Det tog lång tid. Men att få en överenskommelse från 196 länder skulle aldrig bli lätt. Nästa akt i detta långvariga drama visade helt och hållet att: Köpenhamnskonferensen 2009. Facebook Twitter Pinterest USA:s president Barack Obama tillsammans med europeiska ledare, inklusive den tyska förbundskanslern Angela Merkel, deltar i förhandlingarna den sista kvällen av FN:s klimattoppmöte i Köpenhamn den 18 december 2009. Fotografi: Pool/Getty Images Vad hände i Köpenhamn? Allt utom fördraget. Alla världens utvecklade länder och de största utvecklingsländerna enades för första gången om att begränsa sina utsläpp av växthusgaser. Detta var ett landmärke, eftersom det innebar att världens största utsläppare förenades mot ett enda mål. De utsläppsminskningar som man enades om var fortfarande inte tillräckliga för att uppfylla vetenskapliga rekommendationer, men de var ett stort framsteg när det gäller att minska utsläppen jämfört med ”business as usual”. Men det som inte hände visade sig vara den punkt som icke-statliga organisationer och många i pressen tog upp. Vad som inte hände var ett fullständigt formulerat och rättsligt bindande fördrag. Är det viktigt? Det beror på din syn på saken. Kyotoprotokollet var ett vackert skrivet, vattentätt, fullt rättsligt bindande internationellt fördrag, ett underfördrag till den på samma sätt bindande UNFCCC. Men det uppfyllde aldrig sina mål, eftersom det inte ratificerades av USA, och inte av Ryssland förrän det var för sent. Och inget av de länder som inte uppfyllde sina åtaganden enligt Kyoto har sanktionerats. Köpenhamnsavtalet antogs däremot inte helt av FN 2009 på grund av kaoset i sista minuten vid konferensen, även om det ratificerades året därpå i form av Cancúnavtalen. Av denna anledning hånades Köpenhamnsavtalet som ett misslyckande av gröna grupper. Men de mål som man enades om i Köpenhamn, i form av ett dokument som undertecknats av världens ledare, står fortfarande kvar. Företrädare för regeringar från mer än 190 nationer kommer att försöka nå en överenskommelse om koldioxidutsläpp vid COP 21 Paris klimatsamtal i december. Fotografi: COP21 Vad är troligt att man kommer överens om i Paris? Vi vet redan vad de största utspridarna har åtagit sig. EU kommer att minska sina utsläpp med 40 %, jämfört med 1990 års nivåer, fram till 2030. USA kommer att minska sina utsläpp med 26 % till 28 %, jämfört med 2005 års nivåer, fram till 2025. Kina kommer att hålla med om att utsläppen kommer att nå sin topp 2030. Nationer som står för mer än 90 % av de globala utsläppen har nu kommit fram till sina mål – kända i FN:s jargong som Intendent Nationally Determined Contributions eller INDC. Dessa omfattar alla större utvecklade länder och utvecklingsländer, även om deras bidrag varierar: när det gäller utvecklade länder, faktiska utsläppsminskningar, men för utvecklingsländer en rad mål, inklusive utsläppsgränser jämfört med ”business as usual”, och löften om att öka koldioxidsnål energi eller bevara skogar. Analysen av INDCS, som stöds av FN, har föreslagit att dessa löften är tillräckliga för att hålla världen till cirka 2,7C eller 3C uppvärmning. Det är inte tillräckligt för att uppfylla de vetenskapliga råden. Men det är inte slutet på historien. En av de viktigaste delarna i varje Parisavtal skulle vara att införa ett system för översyn av utsläppsmålen vart femte år, i syfte att få dem att röra sig uppåt. En annan, och kompletterande, strategi är att göra mer för att minska utsläppen utanför FN-processen, till exempel genom att engagera ”icke-statliga aktörer” såsom städer, lokala myndigheter och företag att göra mer. Om åtagandena från de stora länderna ligger i påsen, betyder det då att Parisavtalet är avgjort? Inte alls – den andra centrala frågan, förutom utsläppsminskningar, är finansiering. Fattigare länder vill att den rika världen ska ge dem ekonomisk hjälp som gör det möjligt för dem att investera i ren teknik för att minska sina utsläpp av växthusgaser och anpassa sin infrastruktur till de sannolika skadorna av klimatförändringarna. Detta är en oerhört omtvistad fråga. I Köpenhamn, där den finansiella delen av affären reddes ut först i sista minuten, rika länder gick med på att leverera $ 30 miljarder (20 miljarder) av "snabbstart" ekonomiskt stöd till de fattiga nationerna, och de sade att 2020, finansiella flöden på minst $ 100 miljarder per år skulle tillhandahållas. Som en hörnsten i alla Parisavtal vill fattiga länder ha garantier för att detta löfte kommer att uppfyllas. Detta har nu getts i flera former: OECD utfärdade en rapport i oktober som visar att två tredjedelar av den finansiering som krävs redan tillhandahålls, och en rapport från World Resources Institute visade att återstoden kan kompenseras genom ökad finansiering från Världsbanken och andra utvecklingsbanker, och från den privata sektorn. Världsbanken och flera regeringar har redan åtagit sig att öka sitt ekonomiska stöd, vilket innebär att man nu kan urskilja en tydlig väg mot målet för 2020. Men det finns mer. Fattiga nationer vill också ha en liknande bestämmelse efter 2020, men det råder stor oenighet om hur detta ska göras. Vissa vill att alla pengar ska komma från rika regeringar i landet, men dessa regeringar är orubbliga i att de inte kommer att tillhandahålla sådan finansiering enbart från statskassan. De vill att internationella utvecklingsbanker, som Världsbanken, ska spela en roll, och de vill att det mesta av finansieringen ska komma från den privata sektorn. En överenskommelse om detta är fortfarande möjlig, men det kommer att vara ett av de största hindren för en Parisuppgörelse. Låga mål, minskade mål: Köpenhamn slutar i misslyckande Läs mer Kommer världens ledare att åka till Paris för att komma överens om detta? Ja, det är jag. Stats- och regeringscheferna i mer än 130 länder har redan sagt att de kommer. Dessa inkluderar Barack Obama av USA, Xi Jinping av Kina, Narendra Modi av Indien, Angela Merkel av Tyskland och David Cameron av Storbritannien. Ingen har hittills dragit sig ur till följd av terroristattackerna mot Paris, och säkerheten har förstärkts som en försäkran. Men till skillnad från Köpenhamnssamtalen, där världens ledare dök upp i sista minuten av de två veckornas samtal för att finna sina förhandlingsgrupper i kaos och utan en tydlig överenskommelse för dem att underteckna, kommer ledarna den här gången att komma fram till konferensens början, ge sina förhandlingsgrupper tydliga instruktioner och förvänta sig ett fullständigt avtal i slutet av den. På den franska regeringens vägnar kommer konferensen att ledas av utrikesminister Laurent Fabius, och miljöminister Segolene Royal, men den franske presidenten Francois Hollande kommer också att spela en nyckelroll. De är alla övertygade om att en uppgörelse kan göras. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Frankrikes president Francois Hollande. Fotografi: Philippe Wojazer /Pool/EPA Vad mer kan vi förvänta oss före Paris? Nyckelfrågan nu är säkerheten. Med den franska huvudstaden under den senaste attacken, och rapporter om nya attacker avvärjs av de väpnade styrkorna, kommer atmosfären i Paris att vara olik alla städer som har varit värd för stora internationella samtal tidigare. Säkerheten kommer att vara av största vikt - den franska polisen och armén kommer att befinna sig på gatorna, och platsen kommer att patrulleras av uniformerade FN-vakter - men grymheterna den 13 november kommer att hänga hårt på alla delegater. Detta kan innebära att när världens ledare deltar i privata möten diskuteras terrorism före klimatförändringarna. Men det kan också betyda att delegaterna är mer pressade än någonsin att komma fram till en överenskommelse, med tanke på de tragiska omständigheter som omger dem. Om nationerna kan nå och enas om rättvisa klimatmål under dessa omständigheter kommer det att bli en triumf för det internationella samarbetet, för vårt välbefinnande och vår säkerhet, och för tron på framtiden, inför krafter som vill förstöra alla tre. Från och med 1996 har Alexa Internet donerat sina krypdata till Internet Archive. Dessa data flödar in varje dag och läggs till i Wayback Machine efter en embargoperiod. Â°°
Summarize this article: In this picture from video, taken Nov. 9, 2015, former Vice President Al Gore gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in Nashville, Tenn. After decades of alarms about global warming,... (Associated Press) NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — After decades of awakening alarms about global warming, former Vice President Al Gore now raises hopes. As a top level international climate summit starts later this month in Paris, Gore — who helped negotiate the 1997 climate agreement that did not control the problem — is sure this time will be different. "I'm optimistic," said Gore in a sit-down interview this week with The Associated Press. "We're going to win this. We need to win it faster because a lot of damage happens day by day. We continue to place 110 million tonnes of global warming pollution in the atmosphere every day as if it were an open sewer." In 35 minutes, Gore – presented by critics as a preacher of doom and gloom – uses versions of the words "optimistic" or "hopeful" or "positive" at least 16 times. Even when he kicks off the alarming effects of global warming, he concludes with a ton of confidence. "The number of extremely hot days has multiplied dramatically," Gore said. "The great downpours, floods, landslides, the deeper and longer drought, rising sea levels from the melting ice, the forest fires, there's a long list of events that people can see and feel viscerally now. Every night on the television news is like a nature walk through the Book of Revelation." But he added: "Increasing people connect these points. And although they do not use the phrase climate crisis or global warming, more and more people feel that this needs to be addressed. On Friday, Gore will take his mixed alarm and hope to Paris, a little ahead of world leaders. He will host a 24-hour telethon of various kinds from the Eiffel Tower to raise awareness of global warming, with Elton John, French President Francois Hollande, actor Jared Leto, energy minister Ernest Moniz, former UN chief Kofi Annan, actor Ryan Reynolds and California Gov. Jerry Brown. But he said that it is no longer just about convincing people to act – it now makes sense financially as well. He says that solar energy and wind energy are dirt cheap — even free in Texas at certain hours. He said that businesses and developing countries take climate change seriously. "There really is a wave in corporate America that is moving rapidly towards a low carbon economy," Gore said. Unlike the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which mandated emission reductions for rich nations but not poor, what is probably not from Paris will not require ratification by the United States Senate and is based on countries that set their own targets. And that, Gore insisted, is "more productive." But is Gore himself? Dana Fisher, director of the community and environment program at the University of Maryland, said Gore's "role is limited at this point. There was a moment when he pushed a wave of attention." But now, she says, she didn't even know Gore organized her Paris telethon. "I've never thought of him as a central figure in the climate movement," said Fisher. Gore insists he is. He said he has trained "many thousand" activists and is still consulting with leaders in the United States and other governments at all levels. He plans to be at the Paris climate talks "until the last dog dies". Some experts suggest Gore's stint as the public face of climate change activism - especially with his 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" - may have turned off some people because the messenger was so associated with democratic politics. "Climate change science is demonized due to Al Gore," said Erik Conway, a NASA historian who co-wrote the book "Merchants of Doubt". Conway does not blame Gore, but said, "If John McCain had become the climate movement's titular leader instead of Al Gore, we might have a different world." But Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard historian who co-authors the book with Conway, disagrees. "He's been demonized because he's effective," she said. For his part, Gore said, "He who becomes very visible as a spokesman for change gets the hurlers and arrows and all the anger directed at the messenger to try to get to the message." In addition to his Climate Reality Project, his main advocacy group (which is involved in producing telethon), Gore is chairman of Generation Investment Management, a boutique investment management agency. He serves on Apple's board of directors and is a senior partner at a Kleiner Parkinson's Caufield & Byers, a major Silicon Valley venture capital fund. Fifteen years later, 67-year-old Gore claims that he is not staying at the 2000 election, when he won the referendum but lost the electoral college: "I started moving forward the day after the Supreme Court decision and I am excited about the future." Was it best to lose the presidency? "No, I wouldn't say that," Gore said and laughed. "I don't think there is a position with as much potential to create positive change as President of the United States, but that wasn't to be. I feel very happy in other ways to make a positive difference." Then he returned to the subject of his telethon. Hozier will be among the artists; Gore whips out his iPhone to play the singer's hit in 2014 "Take Me To Church." He closed his eyes and listened. The final verse of the song: "In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene, only then am I human, only then am I pure." ___ Online: Al Gore's Live Earth: 24 Hours of Reality: https://www.climaterealityproject.org/24hoursofreality ___ Follow Seth Borenstein at http://twitter.com/borenbears and his work is available at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein._______ Second round of Live Earth music concerts that former Vice President of the United States and Pharrell Williams would be broadcast to billions around the world around Pharrell Williams and Al Gore's promise of a second round of Live Earth concerts on seven continents that would be broadcast to a crowd of billions has been downgraded to a webcast in Paris, organizers have confirmed. Everything you need to know about the Paris climate summit and UN talks Read more In January, the duo and producer Kevin Wall World Economic Forum in Davos used to announce a global event that would reach 2 billion people over 193 television networks, with promotional material promising 100 artists in seven shows. In May, organisers delayed the event from a scheduled date of June 18 and said a free, public concert would be held in Paris in the fall instead. But this week the organizers told Guardian that Live Earth had been reduced to an event on November 13 and 14 at Champ de Mars in Paris that will be closed to the public and streamed online instead. “It’s taking a different form this year than the open concert of previous years, but some major musical talents have signed for the 24 Hours event,” said a spokeswoman, citing an annual 24-hour event held by Gore NGO, Climate Reality. She added: “We collaborate with several distribution partners worldwide to make sure this is the most available 24 Hours event in history.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest An inflatable pig floats above Live Earth New York concert during Pink Floyd member Roger Waters’ set in 2007. Photograph: Mike Segar/REUTERS Details of the webcast distribution and the actions carried out will be announced on Thursday. Williams, the creative director of the project, had said in January that: “Instead of just letting people perform, we will literally get humanity to harmonize all at once.” He was one of the artists of the original Live Earth concerts in 2007. Next week's event, dubbed 24 hours of reality and living earth: The world is watching, coming just weeks before world leaders, including Barack Obama and Xi Jinping go to Paris for a landmark UN climate change summit. Gore said that the event is about mobilising people around the world to help solve the climate crisis and make our voices heard in national capitals and at the negotiating table in Paris. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pussycat Dolls performs at the Live Earth concert at the Wembley Stadium in London, July 2007. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images François Hollande, President of France, and Paris Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, will participate in the web event together with former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, journalists, weather presenters and campaigners. Wall said of the new plans: “The climate crisis is serious, so we take advantage of the best content and latest in mobile, social media, and online distribution to make sure we can connect with people everywhere.” . When the UN climate negotiations resume in Bonn, we look at why crisis Paris climate conference 30 November-11 December is so important What happens in Paris in December? The governments of more than 190 countries will gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change. Why now? The current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions expire in 2020, so in Paris governments are expected to agree on what happens in the decade after at least, and potentially after that. Emission course Photography: Guardian Why is this important? Scientists have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, we will cross the threshold above which global warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible. This threshold is estimated as a temperature increase of 2C above pre-industrial levels, and on current emission pathways we are heading for an increase of about 5C. It may not sound like much, but the temperature difference between today’s world and the last ice age was about 5C, so seemingly small temperature changes can mean great differences for the earth. Why has no one thought of getting a global agreement on this before? They have done so: global negotiations on climate change have been going on for more than 20 years. The history of climate change goes much further back: in the 19th century physicists theorized about the role of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, and several suggested that the warming effect would increase alongside the levels of these gases in the atmosphere. But all of this was theoretical. Only in recent decades have scientists begun the measurements needed to establish a link between current carbon dioxide levels and temperatures, and the research conducted since then has consistently pointed in one direction: that increasing greenhouse gas emissions, arising from our use of fossil fuels and our industries, lead to higher temperatures. The world's hottest years – in pictures Read more Hasn't global warming stopped? - No, I don't. Global temperatures have been on a clearly upward path. It became a peak in 1998, after which the temperature was lower – yet warmer than earlier decades – causing some climate skeptics to claim that the world cooled. In the period since 1998, global temperatures have risen at a slower pace than in the previous 30 years. This too has been taken on by skeptics as evidence that global warming has ‘paused’. However, it is important to note that the temperature has not dropped, or stopped – they have continued to rise. Given the variations that characterise our weather systems, a period when the rate of warming slowed is not unexpected. Over the past two years, the rate of warming seems to have increased again, but much of it cannot be interpreted. What progress have we seen in a global agreement? In 1992, governments met in Rio de Janeiro and shaped the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. That agreement, which is still in force, forced governments to take measures to avoid dangerous climate change, but did not specify what measures to take. For the next five years, governments argued over what each one would do, and what role would industrialised nations play against poorer nations. These years of argument gave rise to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. That pact required worldwide emission reductions of about 5%, compared to 1990 levels, by 2012, and each developed country was assigned a emission reduction target. However, developing countries, including China, South Korea, Mexico, and other rapidly emerging economies, were not targeted and allowed to increase their emissions at will. Facebook Twitter Pinterest People sign the Earth promise made at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992. Photography: UN Photo Al Gore, then Vice President of the United States, signed the protocol, but it was quickly evident that it would never be ratified by the United States Congress. Legally speaking, the Protocol could not enter into force until 55% of global emissions had ratified it. With the United States – then the world's largest emitter – on the outside, that wouldn't happen. So for most of the next decade, the Kyoto Protocol remained obscured and global climate change negotiations to an almost halted place. However, at the end of 2004, Russia decided to adopt the Treaty – unexpectedly, and as part of a step to have its application for membership of the World Trade Organisation accepted by the European Union. It was the necessary weight, and the Protocol finally came into force. So we had a global deal? Not really. The United States, under George W Bush, remained steadily outside Kyoto, so although the UN negotiations went on year after year, the US negotiators were often in different rooms from the rest of the world. It was clear that a new strategy was needed to get the US to enter and encourage the major developing economies – especially China, which is now the world's largest emitter – to limit its emissions. What followed was, as agreed in Bali in 2007, after a lot of drama, an action plan that set the world on the right track towards a new agreement to take over after Kyoto. This is taking a long time. And then what happened? It took a long time. But getting an agreement from 196 countries would never be easy. The next act of this long-standing drama showed completely that: Copenhagen Conference 2009. Facebook Twitter Pinterest U.S. President Barack Obama along with European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, participates in the negotiations on the last night of the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen on 18 December 2009. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images What happened in Copenhagen? Everything but the Treaty. All the developed countries of the world and the largest developing countries agreed for the first time to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. This was a landmark, as it meant that the world's largest emitter was united towards a single goal. The agreed emission reductions were still not sufficient to meet scientific advice, but they were a major step forward in reducing emissions compared to business as usual. But what did not happen turned out to be the point raised by NGOs and many in the press. What did not happen was a fully formulated and legally binding treaty. Is it important? Depends on your view of the matter. The Kyoto Protocol was a beautifully written, watertight, fully legally binding international treaty, a sub-Treaty to the similarly binding UNFCCC. But it never met its goals, because it was not ratified by the United States, and not by Russia until it was too late. And none of the countries that failed to meet their Kyoto commitments have been sanctioned. On the other hand, the Copenhagen Agreement was not fully adopted by the UN in 2009 due to the last minute chaos at the conference, although it was ratified the following year in the form of the Cancún Agreements. For this reason, the Copenhagen Agreement was mocked as a failure by green groups. However, the objectives agreed in Copenhagen, in the form of a document signed by world leaders, remain. Representatives of governments from more than 190 nations will seek agreement on carbon dioxide emissions at COP 21 Paris climate talks in December. Photograph: COP21 What is likely to be agreed in Paris? We already know what the biggest spreaders have committed themselves to. The EU will reduce its emissions by 40%, compared to 1990 levels, by 2030. The US will reduce its emissions by 26% to 28%, compared to 2005 levels, by 2025. China will agree that emissions will peak in 2030. Nations that account for more than 90% of global emissions have now reached their targets – known in the United Nations jargon as Curator Nationally Determined Contributions or INDC. These include all major developed and developing countries, although their contributions vary: in developed countries, actual emission reductions, but for developing countries a range of targets, including emission limits compared to ‘business as usual’, and promises to increase low-carbon energy or preserve forests. The analysis of INDCS, supported by the United Nations, has suggested that these promises are sufficient to keep the world to about 2.7C or 3C warming. It is not enough to meet the scientific advice. But that's not the end of the story. One of the main elements of each Paris agreement would be to introduce a system for reviewing emissions targets every five years, with a view to moving them upwards. Another, and complementary, approach is to do more to reduce emissions outside the UN process, for example by involving ‘non-state actors’ such as cities, local authorities and businesses to do more. If the commitments of the large countries are in the bag, does that mean that the Paris agreement is settled? Not at all – the second key issue, apart from emission reductions, is funding. Poorer countries want the rich world to provide them with financial assistance that enables them to invest in clean technologies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt their infrastructure to the likely damage caused by climate change. This is an extremely contentious issue. In Copenhagen, where the financial part of the deal was settled only at the last minute, wealthy countries agreed to deliver $30 billion (20 billion) of "quick start" financial support to the poor nations, and they said 2020, financial flows of at least $100 billion per year would be provided. As a cornerstone of all Paris agreements, poor countries want guarantees that this promise will be fulfilled. This has now been done in several forms: the OECD issued a report in October showing that two thirds of the required funding is already provided, and a report by the World Resources Institute showed that the remainder can be compensated by increased funding from the World Bank and other development banks, and from the private sector. The World Bank and several governments have already committed themselves to increasing their financial support, which means that a clear path towards the 2020 target can now be identified. But there's more. Poor nations also want a similar provision after 2020, but there is great disagreement about how this should be done. Some want all money to come from rich governments in the country, but these governments are adamant that they will not provide such funding solely from the treasury. They want international development banks, such as the World Bank, to play a role, and they want most of the funding to come from the private sector. An agreement on this is still possible, but it will be one of the main obstacles to a Paris settlement. Low targets, reduced targets: Copenhagen ends in failure Read more Will world leaders go to Paris to agree on this? Yes, I am. The Heads of State or Government of more than 130 countries have already said that they are coming. These include Barack Obama of the United States, Xi Jinping of China, Narendra Modi of India, Angela Merkel of Germany and David Cameron of the United Kingdom. No one has yet withdrawn as a result of the terrorist attacks on Paris, and security has been strengthened as an assurance. However, unlike the Copenhagen talks, where world leaders showed up at the last minute of the two weeks of talks to find their negotiating groups in chaos and without a clear agreement for them to sign, leaders will this time arrive at the start of the conference, give their negotiating groups clear instructions and expect a full agreement at the end of it. On behalf of the French Government, the conference will be led by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, and Minister for the Environment Segolene Royal, but French President Francois Hollande will also play a key role. They are all convinced that a settlement can be made. Facebook Twitter Pinterest President of France Francois Hollande. Photography: Philippe Wojazer /Pool/EPA What more can we expect before Paris? The key issue now is security. With the French capital during the recent attack, and reports of new attacks averted by the armed forces, the atmosphere in Paris will be unlike any city that has hosted major international talks before. Security will be paramount - the French police and army will be on the streets, and the place will be patrolled by uniformed UN guards - but the atrocities of 13 November will hang hard on all delegates. This may mean that when world leaders participate in private meetings, terrorism is discussed before climate change. But it may also mean that delegates are more pressured than ever to reach an agreement, given the tragic circumstances surrounding them. If the nations can reach and agree on fair climate goals in these circumstances, it will be a triumph for international cooperation, for our well-being and security, and for faith in the future, for forces that want to destroy all three. As of 1996, Alexa Internet has donated its crawl data to the Internet Archive. This data flows in every day and is added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. <unk>
– Klimatavtalet i Kyoto 1997 som han hjälpte till att förhandla om kom inte att kontrollera klimatförändringarna, men Al Gore säger att denna månads konferens i Paris kommer att bli annorlunda. "Vi ska vinna det här", säger han till AP. "Vi måste vinna det snabbare eftersom en hel del skador görs dag för dag. Vi fortsätter att placera 110 miljoner ton global uppvärmningsföroreningar i atmosfären varje dygn som om det vore en öppen kloak." Även om han säger "varje kväll på TV-nyheterna är som en naturvandring genom Uppenbarelseboken", tillägger han "allt fler människor kopplar ihop dessa punkter" och "fler och fler människor känner att detta kommer att behöva åtgärdas." Det är en riktig förändring för en man som AP-noterna har satts upp som en "predikant av undergång och dunkel" av vissa. I själva verket använder Gore under sina 35 minuter tillsammans "versioner av orden "optimistisk" eller "hoppfull" eller "positiv" minst 16 gånger", skriver AP. Deras samtal kommer före en 24-timmars-telethon han kommer att vara värd fredag vid foten av Eiffeltornet för att öka medvetenheten om global uppvärmning. Även om det från början var planerat som ett globalt Live Earth-event som skulle sändas till 2 miljarder människor över 193 TV-nätverk, säger Gore nu 24 timmars verklighet och Live Earth kommer att strömmas online och handlar "om att mobilisera människor runt om i världen ... och göra våra röster hörda i nationella huvudstäder och vid förhandlingsbordet i Paris," enligt Guardian. (FN:s konferens om klimatförändringar startar nov. 30.) Frankrikes president Francois Hollande, Pharrell Williams, Elton John, Duran Duran, Bon Jovi, Neil Young, Fall Out Boy, Hozier, Ryan Reynolds, och Jared Leto kommer också att ta scenen, per People.
“The 1997 Kyoto Climate Agreement, which he helped negotiate, did not control climate change, but Al Gore says that this month’s conference in Paris will be different. "We're going to win this," he says to the AP. "We have to win it faster because a lot of damage is done day by day. We continue to place 110 million tonnes of global warming pollution in the atmosphere every day as if it were an open sewer." Although he says "every night on the television news is like a nature walk through the Book of Revelation," he adds "more and more people connect these points" and "more and more people feel this will need to be addressed." It is a real change for a man like the AP notes have been set up as a "preacher of doom and obscurity" by some. In fact, during his 35 minutes together, Gore uses "versions of the words "optimistic" or "hopeful" or "positive" at least 16 times," AP writes. Their call comes before a 24-hour telethon he will host Friday at the foot of the Eiffel Tower to raise awareness of global warming. Although initially planned as a global Live Earth event that would be broadcast to 2 billion people across 193 television networks, Gore now says 24 hours of reality and Live Earth will be streamed online and is "about mobilising people around the world ... and making our voices heard in national capitals and at the negotiating table in Paris," according to the Guardian. (UN Conference on Climate Change starts Nov. 30.) French President Francois Hollande, Pharrell Williams, Elton John, Duran Duran, Bon Jovi, Neil Young, Fall Out Boy, Hozier, Ryan Reynolds, and Jared Leto will also take the stage, per People.