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 
 
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 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.” ||||| Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore attends the 2011 Global Urban Development Forum in Beijing January 6, 2011. 
 
 LONDON Former Vice President Al Gore will renew his 30-year campaign to convince skeptics of the link between climate change and extreme weather events this week in a 24-hour global multi-media event. 
 
 "24 Hours of Reality" will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses. 
 
 The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter to it for 24 hours to deliver Gore's message. 
 
 "There will be 200 new slides arguing the connection between more extreme weather and climate change," Trewin Restorick, chief executive of the event's UK partner Global Action Plan, told Reuters on Monday. 
 
 "There will be a full-on assault on climate skeptics, exploring where they get their funding from." 
 
 Gore tried to raise awareness about global warming in the 2006 documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth," which earned $49 million at the box office worldwide. The film was criticized by some climate change skeptics for being one-sided. 
 
 Concern about climate change in the United States, the world's second biggest emitter, has fallen steadily to 48 percent in 2011, from 62 percent in 2007, an opinion poll showed in August. 
 
 Gore's presentation will be available at: climaterealityproject.org/ 
 
 (Reporting by Nina Chestney, editing by Paul Casciato) ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sir David Attenborough addressing the climate change conference in Poland. 
 
 The naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said climate change is humanity's greatest threat in thousands of years. 
 
 The broadcaster said it could lead to the collapse of civilisations and the extinction of "much of the natural world". 
 
 He was speaking at the opening ceremony of United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Katowice, Poland. 
 
 The meeting is the most critical on climate change since the 2015 Paris agreement. 
 
 Sir David said: "Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate change. 
 
 "If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." 
 
 The naturalist is taking up the "People's Seat" at the conference, called COP24. He is supposed to act as a link between the public and policy-makers at the meeting. 
 
 "The world's people have spoken. Their message is clear. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now," he said. 
 
 Speaking at the opening ceremony, Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, said climate change was already "a matter of life and death" for many countries. 
 
 He explained that the world is "nowhere near where it needs to be" on the transition to a low-carbon economy. 
 
 But the UN Secretary-General said the conference was an effort to "right the ship" and he would convene a climate summit next year to discuss next steps. 
 
 Meanwhile, the World Bank has announced $200bn in funding over five years to support countries taking action against climate change. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Climate activist: 'It's high time that Poland phased out coal' 
 
 What's so different about this meeting? 
 
 This Conference of the Parties (COP) is the first to be held since the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C came out in October. 
 
 The IPCC stated that to keep to the 1.5C goal, governments would have to slash emissions of greenhouse gases by 45% by 2030. 
 
 But a recent study showed that CO2 emissions are on the rise again after stalling for four years. 
 
 In an unprecedented move, four former UN climate talks presidents issued a statement on Sunday, calling for urgent action. 
 
 They say "decisive action in the next two years will be crucial". 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Climate change: How 1.5C could change the world 
 
 Meanwhile, the gap between what countries say they are doing and what needs to be done has never been wider. 
 
 So urgent is the task that some negotiators began their meetings on Sunday, a day before the official start. 
 
 Will global leaders be attending? 
 
 Yes, some 29 heads of state and government are due to give statements at the opening of the meeting. 
 
 The number is way down on the stellar cast that turned up in Paris in 2015, which perhaps indicates that many are seeing this as more a technical stage on the road to tackling climate change than a big bang moment. 
 
 But for the likes of China and the EU, the meeting is critical. They will want to show that international co-operation can still work even in the age of President Trump. 
 
 How years compare with the 20th Century average 2017 10 warmest years 10 coldest years 20th Century average Hotter Colder Months J F M A M J J A S O N D Source: NOAA Replay 
 
 So will cutting carbon be the main focus of the meeting? 
 
 Rather than spending all their time working on how to increase ambitions to cut carbon, conference delegates are likely to focus on trying to finalise the technical rules of how the Paris agreement will work. 
 
 Image copyright FABRICE COFFRINI Image caption A collage of children's drawing about climate change laid out on a glacier in Switzerland 
 
 While the agreement was ratified in record time by more than 180 countries in 2016, it doesn't become operational until 2020. 
 
 Before then, delegates must sort out common rules on measuring, reporting and verifying (checking to avoid the misreporting of) greenhouse gas emissions, and on how climate finance is going to be provided. 
 
 "The rulebook is the thing that will absorb most of the negotiators' capacity at this year's COP," said Camilla Born, from the climate change think tank, E3G. 
 
 "It's no surprise, as agreeing the Paris rules is both technically and politically a complicated task - but it is worth it!" 
 
 Right now, that rule book runs to several hundred pages with thousands of brackets, indicating areas of dispute. 
 
 But what about limiting emissions? 
 
 Under the Paris agreement, each country decides for itself the actions it will take when it comes to cutting carbon. Some observers believe that the changed mood and the urgency of the science will prompt action. 
 
 "We are hoping that at COP24, countries will make declarations of how they will raise their ambitions by 2020. This is a very important moment," said Fernanda Carvalho with campaign group WWF. 
 
 "Two years is a short time span for that to happen. Countries need to act fast." 
 
 Why is the UN process slow-moving? 
 
 There is much frustration with the snail-like pace, especially among some campaigners who feel that the scale of the threat posed by rising temperatures hasn't been fully grasped by politicians. 
 
 Image copyright HANNA FRANZEN Image caption Greta Thunberg, who has refused to go to school in Sweden in protest over climate change, will be attending COP24 
 
 "Governments across the world have completely failed to protect their citizens," said a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, the social movement that pushes for radical change on climate issues. 
 
 "Instead, they have pursued quick profit and big business. We need this to change. At COP24, we want to ensure that the focus is not just on getting the technical Paris rulebook as robust as possible, but also that governments do not lose sight of the bigger picture." 
 
 Others involved in the UN process say that real progress is being made in tackling one of the most complex problems ever faced by the world. 
 
 "We have a $300bn renewable energy economy at work today - it's not peanuts; it's an energy revolution that has unfolded on the back of, yes, a sometimes sticky climate negotiation process," said Achim Steiner, who heads the United Nations Development Programme. 
 
 How much of a role will money play in making progress in Poland? 
 
 Many developing countries see progress on issues around finance to be critical to moving forward. They have been promised $100bn every year from 2020 as part of the Paris agreement. 
 
 Some are sceptical about what they see as foot-dragging and obfuscation by richer countries when it comes to handing over the cash. Negotiators say that moving forward on finance is the lynchpin of progress in this meeting. 
 
 "A key finding of the recent IPCC report, and one that has often been overlooked, is that without a dramatic increase in the provision of climate finance, the possibility of limiting warming to 2C (to say nothing of the safer 1.5C goal) will irretrievably slip away," said Amjad Abdulla, chief negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States. 
 
 Are there concerns the meeting is in a country reliant on coal? 
 
 Yes - among government negotiators and observers alike. The fact that the conference is taking place in a strong coal region, in a city that is home to the biggest coal company in the EU, is troubling to many. 
 
 The Polish government says that it is sticking with the fuel, and has announced that it is planning to invest next year in the construction of a new coal mine in Silesia. 
 
 This bullish approach has drawn condemnation from some. 
 
 "Unfortunately, this week's announcement by the [meeting's] Polish presidency that it will include coal companies as sponsors of the COP sends a very worrisome signal before the conference even begins," said Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law. 
 
 Will President Trump and the US feature at all? 
 
 Although the US has withdrawn from the Paris agreement, it cannot leave until 2020, so its negotiators have been taking part in meetings and have not obstructed the process. America is expected to participate in COP24. 
 
 However, given the President's well known love of coal, it has been reported that the White House will once again organise a side event promoting fossil fuels. A similar event at the last COP provoked outrage from many delegates. 
 
 UN climate conference 03 Dec- 14 Dec 2018 
 
 The summit comes three years after the 2015 Paris accord on climate change, at which all countries agreed a plan to limit carbon emissions. Now is the moment governments must start deciding what to do to make sure that plan is put into effect.
– 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.