Obama urged not to backburner climate change

Don’t put off action on global warming just because times are lean — that’s the message Al Gore, world environmental leaders and U.S. executives sent Friday to President Barack Obama.

Worries are mounting that economic troubles are sapping momentum, in the U.S. Congress and in other world capitals, for costly investment in clean energy and cutting carbon emissions.
“The oceans are being choked off of oxygen. They are dying as a result of this process we are seeing before our eyes the melting of the polar ice cap,” Gore said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The assumption that we can continue on this path is an assumption that is collapsing.”

Many countries are looking to Obama for aggressive action after frustration at the Bush administration’s refusal to sign international pacts on reducing emissions of carbon, blamed for global warming.

Gore, U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer and executives were discussing the fate of a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen this December aiming for a global agreement on reducing emissions. Questions remain over the new U.S. government’s position on the Copenhagen meeting, which is seen as crucial.

“We need an agreement this year, not next year or some other time,” Gore said.

AP