Twenty-five years ago, Al Gore was in the final stretch of his U.S. presidential campaign, just weeks away from an election that would ultimately slip through his fingers despite winning the popular vote. His platform included ambitious climate action, with America positioned as the natural leader of a global environmental transition.
The irony of what has transpired since is not lost on him. “Looking from the standpoint of 25 years ago, I have to say no, I would not have seen this as the most likely outcome,” Gore admits when asked about China’s emergence as the world’s leading force in the energy transition, a reality that would have seemed almost fantastical to the candidate who once hoped to steer American climate policy from the Oval Office.
But Gore isn’t lamenting China’s climate leadership so much as celebrating that someone is stepping up while expressing frustration that America has ceded the field. As far as he’s concerned, the planet doesn’t care which country leads the charge toward sustainability as long as someone does. What troubles him more is the opportunity cost, the sense that American innovation and influence could be accelerating global progress if the country weren’t busy dismantling its own climate policies.
Gore and Lila Preston of sustainability-focused investment firm Generation Investment Management talked with this editor early Monday morning about their ninth annual climate report, which comprehensively documents both concerning setbacks in U.S. climate policy and China’s remarkable rise as what they call the world’s “first electro state.”
We spent much of our conversation examining what’s making headlines right now: the tech industry’s growing appetite for rare earth minerals and what responsible mining might look like, how the AI boom’s demand for massive data centers could impact global energy consumption, and whether the space industry’s rocket launches really represent the net positive for climate goals that industry observers believe them to be. Following are excerpts from that chat, edited for length and clarity. You can also listen to the full conversation via TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC Download podcast (below).
You’ve been tracking these sustainability trends for years now. Given the policy whiplash between U.S. administrations, should other countries stop counting on America to lead on long-term global challenges?
Al Gore: There is a big wheel turning in the right direction, and there are some smaller wheels within the big wheel turning in the opposite direction. The world is moving very powerfully — if you look back 10 years to the time of the Paris Agreement, 55% of all energy investment was still going to fossil fuels, and only 45% to the energy transition. Now those numbers have more than reversed: 65% of financing is going to renewables and only 35% to fossils, and that trend is accelerating.
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The United States has played a key role, but it’s been back and forth with changes in party control, which is unfortunate because the world would greatly benefit from sustained, consistent leadership from the U.S. We will survive this setback in the form of all these negative steps Trump has been taking. The rest of the world is moving forward, and even the U.S. will continue to move forward, albeit at a slower pace.
The report suggests China is becoming the world’s first “electro state” while the U.S. abandons the race for clean tech leadership. Could you have imagined this scenario 25 years ago?
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