Gore maintains pressure on PM over Kyoto

Al Gore still has a bone to pick with John Howard for not signing the Kyoto agreement.

The former US vice-president, now a leading climate crusader, again referred to Australia and the US as the Bonnie and Clyde of the climate crisis, just as he did on a visit Down Under last year when he panned them for being the only advanced nations holding out on the Kyoto process.

Mr Howard, never a supporter of Kyoto, claimed a small but important climate coup at Sydney's recent APEC meeting by bringing together the world's biggest polluters - the US, China and Russia - and gaining their agreement to "aspirational goals" for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Critics said the so-called Sydney declaration meant nothing because it committed none of the APEC countries, including the big three polluters, to any specific targets.

Mr Gore has repeated his calls for Australia to ratify Kyoto, describing it as the world's effort to come up with rules that applied to everybody.

He suggested action by Australia on Kyoto could force America to follow suit, and although he did not mention Mr Howard by name, his comments will up the ante on the eve of a federal election where climate change has become a key issue.

"I said it in Australia before and I will say it again, if Australia ratifies Kyoto, it is like Australia and the United States are Bonnie and Clyde in the world of environment," Mr Gore said in a speech in Sydney.

"And if Clyde is isolated and Bonnie has gone straight, Clyde won't really be able to resist any more."

Mr Howard has argued that Kyoto is not in Australia's interests, even though Australia has met emission reduction goals set for it by the protocol.

He maintains it is unfair to apply a "one size fits all" agreement on pollution targets, because countries are so structurally different and at different stages of development, and believes the best chance for progress is to build incrementally on the APEC declaration.

Mr Gore's current visit to Australia underlines how much has changed politically since his previous trip last November.

Back then Mr Howard was saying that Mr Gore's influential documentary movie about impending planetary catastrophe, An Inconvenient Truth, failed to make the earth move for him and smacked of a "peeved politician" sniping at the Bush administration.

Since then climate change has assumed a steadily more significant place in political debate, and Mr Howard has responded to public concerns about it.

Mr Howard also has had to stare down leadership pressure from within his own party and, according to the opinion polls, still faces a heavy defeat at the looming federal election despite a recent improvement.

Mr Gore also stressed the importance of Kyoto in a second speech where the audience included NSW Premier Morris Iemma.

"He made the point that if Australia moves to ratify Kyoto it would be impossible for the United States to hold out, given our relationship and given Australia's past record in action on climate change and on the environment," Mr Iemma told reporters later.

"I don't think there was a person in that room ... who would have disagreed."

Mr Gore, narrowly defeated by George W Bush, Mr Howard's Iraq war ally, in the 2000 US presidential election, is on a speaking tour to Sydney and Melbourne.