London: Former US Vice-President Al Gore committed a blunder at the Copenhagen climate change summit by claiming that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.
Gore, who had become an unlikely green movement activist after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, got entangled in a new climate change “spin” row by misquoting an expert.
“These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years,” The Times quoted Gore, as saying.
But Maslowski says that this was never a figure they agreed to.
"I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this,” he said.
Right from its beginning, the Copenhagen summit is having a series of setbacks.
Key elements of the deal are unraveling and developing countries walked out last night in protest. These along with Al Gore`s blunder have cast yet more shadows over the conference of Copenhagen.
ANI