Gore, Ban, Schwarzenegger Urge Climate Action Now

UNITED NATIONS - The head of the United Nations, the governor of California and the star of "An Inconvenient Truth" spoke with one voice on Monday, urging quick global action to stem emissions that heat the planet.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, whose concerns about global warming were the basis for the Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth," told a U.N. gathering that the developed world needs to turn away from public scandals and face the task of curbing the emission of greenhouse gases.

"We have to overcome the paralysis that has prevented us from acting and focus clearly and unblinkingly on this world crisis, rather than spending time on Anna Nicole Smith and O.J. Simpson and Paris Hilton," Gore said, drawing applause.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said: "The time has come to stop looking back at the Kyoto Protocol.... The rich nations and the poor nations have different responsibilities, but one responsibility we all have is action."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined that call to action in his remarks to about 80 world leaders who met to focus on the problem of climate change. "Today let the world know that you are ready to shoulder this responsibility and that you will address this challenge head on," he said.

The session is meant to gather momentum for a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December where negotiators will start work on a climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which set binding emissions targets for 36 developed countries. The Kyoto plan expires in 2012.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice represented the United States at the climate meeting, urging a technology revolution to combat global warming.

"Put simply, the world needs a technological revolution," Rice said. "Existing energy technologies alone will not meet the global demand for energy while also reducing emissions to necessary levels."

'WE CAN WAIT NO LONGER'

President George W. Bush did not attend the session but was to dine with Ban, along with representatives of countries that emit the most greenhouse gases and from island nations that are most vulnerable to rising seas forecast as a result of global warming.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, representing countries that emit 15 percent of the world's climate-warming carbon dioxide, told Reuters: "We can succeed only if we have the United States with us."

Barroso said Schwarzenegger's speech showed that Americans are "increasingly aware and ready to take action" on global warming.

"We can wait no longer," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "It is our duty to make decisions straight away because otherwise it is going to be too late."

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi welcomed the new "depth and dimension" at the U.N. conference, saying he found "a new atmosphere of agreement."

Praising Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder and film star, Prodi said, "It is good that there are also new actors on the scene." Schwarzenegger's state has been a leader in passing measures aimed at curbing climate change, including tougher emissions standards for new motor vehicles.

The U.N. session is the first of three U.S. events on climate change this week that are likely to focus attention on whether Washington can make good on its pledge to take a leading role in curbing such emissions.

But it is not a negotiating session. That will come in December in Bali, Indonesia, where climate experts will try to craft a successor to the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol.

Bush has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

He contends the accord unfairly burdens rich countries while exempting developing countries like China and India and that it will cost U.S. jobs.

Developing countries have said it is unfair to ask them to curb their emissions as their economies grow while industrialized nations have been polluting for decades.

Bush does plan to speak at a two-day Washington meeting at the State Department on Thursday and Friday, a gathering of "major economies" -- the world's biggest global warming contributors -- on energy security and climate change.

A third conference on climate change is being organized by the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.