If it were possible to vote for a world parliament, AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER would be a campaign commercial for Al Gore’s climate awareness party. The former US vice president Al Gore’s passion project is to save the world or rather prevent climate change. He shot AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH in 2006 and since then he has been tirelessly touring around the world and trained thousands of climate ambassadors for that purpose. These people push the reduction of CO2 emissions and the development of alternative energy sources in their communities and local governments. In the US they mostly fight against the strong lobby of climate change deniers, a group that current President Donald Trump belongs to. AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL is best understood as a building block in this debate. The film begins with the arguments and defamations of the climate deniers who are heard but not seen. Al Gore counters them with impressive images and statistics. The big glaciers are melting, extreme weather conditions are increasing, the number of scorching hot days are rising. Video clips show Miami and Ground Zero underwater – a scenario that Al Gore was mocked for 10 years ago. The images are often a part of Al Gore’s climate seminars which the film extensively documents and primarily convey two things: Al Gore’s persistent engagement and the worldwide movement fighting against climate change. And it’s successful: at the UN climate conference in 2015 all of the attending nations agreed on a global climate treaty. In 2017 the US got out of the agreement. All of the important movements had to deal with setbacks, says Al Gore, but things have to keep going. AN INCONVIENT SEQUEL isn’t a documentary, it’s a call to action.

Toni Ohms

Translation: Elinor Lewy