Al Gore, climate change prophet, has made a startling announcement: carbon isn’t anywhere near as big a culprit in global warming as previously claimed.  

Promoting his new book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, Gore had this to say in an interview with Newsweek:

In his conversations with Schmidt and other colleagues at the beginning of the year, Gore explored new studies – published only last week – that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide – while the focus of the politics of climate change – produces around 40% of the actual warming.

This throws a rather large spanner in the works on the eve of the Copenhagen talks on climate change.  Gore has spent a number of years campaigning for an international agreement on reducing carbon; the number of people asking ‘why sign on’ will only grow from here.  And “so I can become the world’s first carbon billionaire” is not an acceptable answer, Mr Gore.

In New Zealand, a nation that contributes just 0.2 percent of global carbon emissions, our climate change policies need to be reexamined now more than ever.