Al Gore on His Clive Palmer Alliance and Why South Australia is Now 'Leading the World'
Al Gore is on a mission.
In the years since conceding the 2000 US presidential election, the self-described "recovering politician" has dedicated his career to the global fight against climate change.
This week, the former Vice President of the United States is in Sydney and Melbourne ahead of the release of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, the documentary sequel to 2006's critically-acclaimed An Inconvenient Truth.
And he was keen to talk to TheFIX about the latest renewable energy news: Elon Musk's mega-battery in South Australia.
"I have a lot of admiration for South Australia because it's now leading the world — the largest battery ever, and this will be the first of many," Mr Gore, 69, told TheFIX in Sydney July 10.
"The transition to renewable electricity is going to be a lot easier because these batteries have come down in price so quickly."
While Donald Trump's decision to pull the US out of the landmark Paris Agreement earlier this year could be seen as a brutal blow in the fight against climate change, Mr Gore chooses to see the positive.
"When he made that announcement, I worried that other countries might follow him," he says, "but I was pleasantly surprised that, to the contrary, the entire rest of the world held firm and said, 'No, we're going to not pay attention to Donald Trump. We're going to solve this anyway'."
And when asked about his controversial 2014 visit to Australia during which he aligned himself with mining tycoon Clive Palmer, the former Vice President was adamant that he had no regrets, "none whatsoever".
In fact, he said, "I think the results were very positive."
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is in Australian cinemas on August 10.
