Telemundo's Climate Commitment

Former vice president Al Gore and Vanessa Hauc are seen on the set of Enfoque Noticias at Telemundo Studios on August 3, 2017, in Miami, Florida.(Alexander Tamargo / WireImage via Getty Images)

In an interview that Noticias Telemundo aired March 29, former US vice president and longtime climate activist Al Gore said he still believes humanity “will solve [the climate] crisis” despite the resistance of a “wannabe dictator” in the Oval Office. To that end, Gore described a tool for holding polluters accountable that journalists will also find valuable.

The nonprofit organization Climate Trace monitors 300 satellites and 30,000 sensors to identify “the specific amounts of pollution coming from every significant [greenhouse gas emissions] source in the world, 660 million of them,” Gore said. “We know who operates them, who owns them, are the emissions going up or are they going down.” Climate Trace has begun issuing monthly reports, enabling journalists to alert communities to nearby emissions sources and question government and corporate officials about reducing the pollution.

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In a clear allusion to Trump, Gore replied that “the most powerful and wealthiest business lobby in the history of the world, the fossil fuel lobby, has captured a lot of politicians and policymakers…. [But] we the people have a right to demand that…we not have to tell our children and grandchildren their futures have been sacrificed to the profits of these big fossil fuel companies.”

It’s a savvy business move, given that surveys have long found that Hispanic people are the US demographic group that cares most about environmental issues. Roughly two in three (67 percent) Hispanics think the US government “is doing too little to protect the environment,” according to the Pew Research Center, compared to 58 percent of non-Hispanics. Since Hispanics account for a growing percentage of US voters—10 percent in the 2024 national election and higher proportions in some local elections in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California—they are a voting bloc that politicians ignore at their peril.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/telemundo-climate-reporting/