President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has received warm praise from Nobel winning crusader Al Gore for his "historic" bid to spark a French "green revolution" after months of climate negotiations with green groups, unions and big business.
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| Al Gore and President Sarkozy at today's announcement |
The former US vice president congratulated Mr Sarkozy for his "leadership" in getting opposing lobbies to talk to each other that the world could emulate.
"Today you become known as a great friend of the people of this planet," said Mr Gore, 59, who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to raise awareness about the dangers of climate change.
"I want to offer my congratulations to the French people. This is the beginning of an historic process."
Mr Gore said the French forum - dubbed the "Grenelle of the environment" after a Paris district - had given "a tremendous boost" to efforts to fight climate change.
"We need a 'Grenelle mondial' (Worldwide Grenelle) so that we can all go far quickly," he said, referring to France's success in getting old rivals - industry, green advocates, farmers - to talk and agree on measures.
Mr Gore called this week on world leaders to hold an emergency meeting early next year at the UN to review progress made at the global climate talks in Bali in December.
The Bali summit aims to create a roadmap for negotiations on a global deal on climate change to come into force after the first stage of the UN's Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.