Essay by Eric Worrall
Al Gore still stuck in green conspiracy land.
Twenty years after An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore still believes in the climate fight: ‘We are going to win this’
Former US vice-president still has optimism for climate advocacy two decades after groundbreaking documentary
Oliver Milman Thu 24 Sep 2026 07.43 AEST
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At a New York event to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of the film and his subsequent climate advocacy work, Gore, now 78, joked: “I always say if it hadn’t been for me, we might have a big problem right now” when asked about the progress made over the past two decades.
“The scientists unfortunately have been proven to be absolutely correct,” Gore said on Wednesday. “In some important ways, they may have even understated what the damage is doing. The resistance has been more durable and sustained than I expected it to be.”
The fossil fuel industry has “captured control of too many governments” and even the UN’s top climate science apparatus “to a shocking degree”, Gore said, citing recent reporting by the Guardian that Saudi oil operatives were involved in crafting high-profile UN climate reports.
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Gore said that while many developing countries still struggle to get adequate financing for renewables and battery projects, he is confident that the mass adoption of clean energy, now routinely cheaper than fossil fuels such as coal and gas, will take hold.
“The day is coming when our momentum will overtake the resistance. We’re getting very close now,” he said. “I think we are going to win this. The remaining question is whether we will win it in time to avoid those negative tipping points I talked about.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/23/al-gore-climate-crisis-an-inconvenient-truth
Obviously much of what Gore has claimed over the years simply hasn’t happened. Sea level rise has failed to accelerate. Disruption to food production hasn’t worsened – food production is soaring. And the polar ice has failed to melt away.
But his biggest claim, that “resistance” to renewables is impeding adoption, is complete nonsense. The real problem is renewables don’t work.
There is nobody preventing the purchase of renewable systems. Anyone who wants solar panels or batteries or even wind turbines can buy whatever they want, on any scale they want.
Want to power an entire neighbourhood with renewables? Raise the finance, buy a big patch of land, and plant the solar panels and batteries. Nobody will stop you.
Of course, you better be careful about what you actually promise to deliver.
I have a friend who has solar powered his whole house, after ordering components from China – 10s of thousands of watts of solar panel capacity. Apart from one unpleasant surprise, when a set of batteries he ordered from China turned out to be much smaller batteries with rocks in the case to make up the weight, he pretty much got what he wanted.
But even with all this my friend still has to switch on grid power from time to time, especially during air-conditioner season.
My friend will probably have the last laugh when the Aussie East Coast Aussie power grid collapses under the weight of bureaucratic stupidity – power some of the time is better than no power. Prepping for when government lets us down is more my friend’s thing than the fake climate crisis – a position I have some sympathy for. But you can’t run a civilisation on an energy source which keeps letting you down.
Al Gore might be able to persuade people and governments to try renewables, I’m not denying his powers of persuasion. What he cannot do is convince former enthusiasts to continue embracing renewables, when the economic reality of unreliable, expensive energy smacks them in the face, like what is happening right now in Germany.
