Al Gore Blasts Obama On Climate Change For Failing To Take 'Bold Action'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Vice President Al Gore is going where few environmentalists – and fellow Democrats – have gone before: criticizing President Barack Obama's record on global warming.

In a 7,000-word essay for Rolling Stone magazine that will be published Friday, Gore says Obama has failed to stand up for "bold action" on global warming and has made little progress on the problem since the days of Republican President George W. Bush. Bush infuriated environmentalists for resisting mandatory controls on the pollution blamed for climate change, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is responsible.

While Gore credits Obama's political appointees with making hundreds of changes that have helped move the country "forward slightly" on the climate issue, and acknowledges Obama has been dealing with many other problems, he says the president "has simply not made the case for action."

"President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis," Gore says. "He has not defended the science against the ongoing withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community ... to bring the reality of the science before the public."

The comments mark a turnaround for the nation's most prominent global warming advocate, whose work on the climate problem has earned him a Nobel Prize and was adapted into an Oscar-winning documentary.

Gore toasted Obama's inauguration with a "green" ball. He helped the White House press the House to pass a global warming bill in 2009 that would have set the first-ever limits on the pollution blamed for global warming. It died in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Gore also advised Obama before the president participated in international climate negotiations in 2009. Obama's last-minute appearance in Copenhagen helped salvage a nonbinding deal to reduce greenhouse gases.

In the essay, Gore calls the Copenhagen result a "rhetorical agreement" that provided cover for the administration's inability to commit to enforceable targets for global warming pollution. Without legislation, Obama couldn't follow through on his promises to cut emissions.

"During the final years of the Bush-Cheney administration, the rest of the world was waiting for a new president who would aggressively tackle the climate crisis, and when it became clear that there would be no real change from the Bush era, the agenda at Copenhagen changed from `How do we complete this historic breakthrough?' to `How can we paper over this embarrassing disappointment?' " Gore writes, referring to the talks, where 193 nations met to draft a new global treaty to reduce greenhouse gases. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which the U.S. never participated and Gore helped to broker, expires in 2012.

Gore declined an Associated Press request for an interview.