WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore sharply criticized President Barack Obama as lacking leadership on climate change in a magazine essay published online Wednesday, saying his policies had been little more effective than those of President George W. Bush.
In the 7,000-word article in Rolling Stone, Gore said Obama clearly understood the threat to the planet posed by global warming and that he had appointed a number of committed environmental advocates to key positions.
But Gore said that in the face of well-financed attacks from fossil-fuel industries and denial and delay from Republicans in Congress, Obama had failed to act decisively to alter the nation’s policies on climate change and energy.
A White House spokesman defended Obama’s record in a written statement. “The president has been clear since Day 1 that climate change poses a threat domestically and globally, and under his leadership we have taken the most aggressive steps in our country’s history to tackle this challenge,” said Clark Stevens, a White House press officer. The Associated Press
