Gore beats climate change drum in Dubai

DUBAI - Al Gore was beating the climate change drum again on Tuesday, this time in Dubai, as the former U.S. vice president warned global warming will create “hundreds of millions of climate refugees”.

“Each one metre of sea level rise is associated with 100 million climate refugees in the world,” the Nobel laureate told a business forum in Dubai, which could see its famous man-made islands disappear under the waves if his predictions prove true.

“The North Pole ice cap is 40 percent gone already and could be completely and totally gone in the winter months in the next 5 to 10 years,” he warned.

Gore said if Greenland and West Antarctica, made up of massive ice sheets, were to melt it could increase sea levels by 6-7 metres, speaking in the heart of an oil-rich region not known for its regard for the environment.

"Greenland and West Antarctica are such massive amounts of ice each one of would lead to a six to seven metre increase in sea level if it were to melt. And both West Antarctica and Greenland are beginning to melt," he said.

Gulf states are among the biggest per capita polluters on the planet thanks to their love for big gas-guzzling 4x4s, subsidised power and fuel and extensive use of air-conditioning.

Gulf states made up four of the five biggest carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters per capita in 2006.

Gore’s speech comes just days after activists around the world held rallies on Saturday as part of International Day of Climate Change, which marks 50 days until world leaders meet in Copenhagen to thrash out a new climate change treaty.

In Lebanon hundreds of activists, many wearing snorkels, held demonstrations at key archaeological sites nationwide to show their commitment to tackle climate change.

Officials from 190 nations are meeting in Danish capital Dec. 7-18 to agree on a U.N. climate pact that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, but already expectations of reaching agreement are being scaled back.

Janos Pasztor, director of the U.N. secretary-general's Climate Change Support Team, said Monday "it's hard to say how far the conference will be able to go" because the U.S. Congress has not agreed on a climate bill, and industrialised nations have not agreed on targets to reduce CO2 emissions or funding to help developing countries limit their discharges.

Gore said “whether they succeed or not” pressure is already growing on businesses to adopt practices that are environmentally sustainable.

“We have everything we need to succeed with the possible exception of political will,” he said.

Gore’s campaign against global warming won him the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with the U.N. Climate Change Panel, which is headed by Rajendra Pachauri.

Pachauri said earlier this month that U.S. President Obama was not doing enough to tackle greenhouse emissions as climate change legislation gets bogged down in Congress.

"I personally feel that he ought to be doing a lot more," Pachauri said in Stockholm.

U.S. President Barack Obama's Senate allies launched a major push Tuesday behind sweeping legislation to battle climate change.