NORWAY: Nobel prizewinner Al Gore urged governments yesterday to advance by two years a new treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions instead of waiting until the Kyoto pact expires in 2012.
"I hope they will move the effective date of the new treaty forward by two years so that we don't wait until 2012 to have a much tougher treaty in place," Mr Gore said on arriving in Oslo to collect the Nobel prize on Monday.
The former US vice-president and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were jointly awarded the 2007 prize.
"The United States should be the natural leader in this challenge, and many of us are working very hard to bring about a change in the policies of the United States of America," he said at Oslo airport.
He said there were signs of a change in attitude in the US, with more than 700 cities and many states adopting Kyoto provisions, and a call last week by 150 US business leaders for binding carbon emissions cuts. "So we are making a lot of progress," Mr Gore said.
