THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE US COMES TO VISIT AT THE CLIMATE SUMMIT

8 December 1997

While everyone still remembers Al Gore's book "Earth in the balance", his appeareance in Kyoto didn't bring any visible shift of the US position. The US still isn't prepared to agree to meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases.

To remind the delegations of the clear and present danger of climate change, Greenpeace distributed bottles with Meltwater from Antarctica, which we had collected earlier this year during our expedition to Antarctica to document signs of climate change. This Meltwater was collected at the edge of the Larsen A Iceshelf, a 200+ meter thick and 1300 square kilometre thick ice shelf, which collapsed in 1995. We put a tag on its bottleneck with the message on it which read

AL GORE, CUT THE HOT AIR, OR THE PENGUIN GETS IT and which had a little penguin printed next to the text.

A lot of the delegations put the bottle on their tables in the ministerial session and were reminded about the need for urgent reductions of greenhouse gases throughout the day.

In the evening Greenpeace projected a laser message onto the hills opposite of the conference centre, for the delegates to see from the terrace of the conference, urging Gore not to listen to the oil companies which are here to undermine the negotiations, but to start action now to save the climate.

When Gore left, we stopped, and negotiations were proceeding until late in the night, the deadlock not having been resolved yet. 2 more days to save the climate....