Ten Years to a 'Point of No Return'
Gore at Sundance: Ten Years Until the World Hits a 'Point of No Return'
Promoting An Inconvenient Truth in January 2006, Al Gore told the AP that without drastic cuts within 10 years the world would pass the point of no return. The decade ended in 2016.
What was claimed (paraphrase)
Unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return. (AP's paraphrase; 'a true planetary emergency' is his quoted phrase.)
— Al Gore, former US Vice President (interview with The Associated Press at the Sundance Film Festival) · said Jan 26, 2006 · due January 2016 (10 years from January 2006)
January 2016 came and went. Nobody announced a point of no return, and climate diplomacy carried on as if there were still something to decide.
The Story
AP story from the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where An Inconvenient Truth premiered.
The AP reported that politicians and corporations had been ignoring the issue 'to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, Gore said.' He called it 'a true planetary emergency.'
The deadline is the AP's reported paraphrase, so the quote is marked as a paraphrase. See also his 2007-2009 Arctic ice entry.
Receipts
As of Oct 9, 2026
since it didn't happen
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