Special Report: Fight against Global Warming

    BALI, Indonesia, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore here on Thursday joined the voices asking America to do more on climate change, saying his country is "principally responsible" for blocking progress in negotiations for an international climate deal.

    "My own country, the United States of America, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali," said Gore, who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning actions on climate change.

    He urged Washington to act with sense of urgency on climate change, which he described as "not a political issue", "not a diplomatic issue" but "a moral issue".

    Gore urged delegates at the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference to take urgent action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

    The United States has been objecting including in a final conference document a suggestion that industrialized countries reduce emissions by between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020.

    The United States is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and is the only country that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol among major industrialized countries.

    The 1997 Kyoto Protocol requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a relatively modest average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

    The Bush Administration has argued that the climate pact would harm the U.S. economy.

    Pressure even has come from America's alley Australia, whose Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has urged Washington to "embrace" binding targets. The new Prime Minister handed on Wednesday the official document ratifying the Kyoto Protocol to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore

Key words: Nobel Prize;Emmys;environment