Speed up work on climate change deal, Gore to World leaders

BERLIN: World leaders should hold an emergency meeting early next year at the UN to speed up talks on reaching a global deal on climate change, Nobel peace prize winner Al Gore said here.

"Heads of state should meet in emergency session at the UN at the beginning of 2008 to review progress made at the December Bali summit" on climate change, the US former vice- president suggested.

The 11-day Bali summit, which kicks off on December 3, is tasked with creating a roadmap for negotiations on a global deal on climate change to come into force after the first stage of the UN's Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

Gore, addressing a conference on climate change sponsored by a German energy company, said a deal should be brought forward to 2010 to help offset the effects of global warming which threatens the survival of the planet.

"This is not a political issue, it is a moral issue," he said.

Gore, who won this year's Nobel peace prize for his efforts to raise public awareness about the dangers of climate change, pointed to the need to curb the rapid climb in carbon emissions which have triggered a rise in global temperatures.

"2007 showed an all-time high in the melting of the north polar cap which could be completely gone in 23 years," he warned.

The Nobel triumph -- which followed Gore's Oscar award for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" -- fed speculation that he might use the recognition as a springboard for a run in the 2008 presidential elections.