Former Vice President Al Gore was characteristically calm yet blunt during a conversation with Bloomberg News about the global energy transition at a major gathering of world leaders this week.
What's happening?
Each year, the World Economic Forum hosts world leaders, academics, scientists, and business executives in Davos, Switzerland.
That event — dubbed simply "Davos" in the media — kicked off on Jan. 19 with the theme "A Spirit of Dialogue" for 2026.
Financial news outlet Bloomberg has long covered the annual forum in Davos, establishing "Bloomberg House" in 2024 for in-depth discussions, like its sit-down with the former vice president.
Gore has long been known for his ecological focus, and 2026 marked 20 years since the release of Gore's book and follow-up film, "An Inconvenient Truth." Both warned that inaction on environmental issues would be costly and deadly.
Gore now chairs sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management, and he was direct in his criticism of the United States' sharp turn away from the clean energy transition.
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Private equity firm chair and Bloomberg personality David Rubenstein spoke with Gore and asked why in-progress wind farm projects had been halted in the U.S., particularly amid soaring energy prices.
Gore, a staid, dutiful foil to his charismatic running mate, former President Bill Clinton, didn't pull punches about the inevitability of transitioning to renewable energy.
He told Rubenstein that renewables were "taking over" worldwide while the U.S. canceled projects nearing completion.
"We really don't have any choice about this," Gore said of the global future of energy, a sentiment that echoed a recent statement by International Renewable Energy Agency director-general Francesco La Camera.
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In a Jan. 18 report ahead of Davos, Bloomberg reported that the WEF had agreed to "downplay" discussion of rising temperatures and other topics considered agitating to the federal government in an effort to secure American participation.
However, as Davos convened in Switzerland, political discourse in the U.S. was heavily focused on the cost of basic energy necessities, such as heat and electricity.
Active lawmakers and candidates were often forced to discuss the issue through a lens of current policy or constituent outrage, whereas Gore was under no such constraints.
According to Bloomberg, Gore emphasized that solar and wind were the "cheapest forms of electricity" today, an accurate statement that was also consequential as a large share of American homes struggled to afford utilities.
Solar and wind are also widely confirmed to be faster to build than another popular carbon-pollution-reducing solution, nuclear — and even if land acquisition can sometimes be more straightforward for nuclear, the impact on the neighboring towns, including emergency protocols, is far more serious for nuclear than renewable development.
In November, lawmakers issued an urgent plea to utility providers as more households fell behind and faced shutoffs, and as data center expansion continued to spike costs.
What's being done about it?
Gore's assertion that the U.S. couldn't opt out of the clean energy transition was bolstered by some recent news on that front.
In January, a district court judge ruled that the federal government acted unlawfully in canceling nearly $8 billion in clean energy projects.
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