Fact-Checking Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” Claims

In the wake of the 2000 presidential election’s 20th anniversary, a critical reassessment of Al Gore’s post-political career reveals the stark contrast between his climate change predictions and today’s reality.

The night of November 7, 2000, marked a pivotal moment in American electoral history when major networks prematurely called Florida for Vice President Al Gore, effectively declaring him the winner with 272 electoral votes. This hasty announcement came before polls had closed in Florida’s Republican-leaning panhandle, which operates in the Central time zone—a critical oversight that would prove consequential.

Between 6:30 p.m. and 7:50 p.m. Eastern time, broadcast journalists across multiple networks incorrectly reported 39 times that all Florida polls had closed at 7 p.m., unaware that the state spans two time zones. This error forced networks to rescind their calls for both Florida and the presidential election itself.

By 2:15 a.m. Eastern time, networks reversed course, announcing that Texas Governor George W. Bush had won Florida by a razor-thin margin of 537 votes, making him the 43rd president. Gore’s team challenged the results, citing the infamous “hanging chads” issue on ballots. The Supreme Court ultimately decided in Bush’s favor on December 12, 2000, prompting Gore to concede despite resistance from some of his advisers.

Unlike Ronald Reagan, who rebounded from his 1976 primary defeat to win the presidency in 1980, Gore chose a different path. Rather than pursuing another presidential bid in 2004—when John Kerry narrowly lost to Bush with Ohio as the deciding state—Gore dedicated himself to climate change advocacy.

In 2006, Gore released “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary warning of catastrophic environmental consequences without immediate and substantial investment in climate change mitigation. The film received widespread acclaim in Hollywood, winning two Academy Awards including Best Documentary, and contributed to Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Twenty years later, many of the film’s central predictions have failed to materialize. Gore claimed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania would lose all its snow by 2016, yet today the mountain still maintains snow, glaciers, and ice caps despite its proximity to the equator and the tropical climate below.

Perhaps more significantly, Gore cited research suggesting a 75% chance that the North Polar ice cap would be completely ice-free during summer months within five to seven years. The researcher whose work Gore referenced, Wieslaw Maslowski, distanced himself from this claim, stating, “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.” Contrary to Gore’s prediction, ice at the North Pole actually accumulated between 2021 and 2023, with record ice accumulation also observed in Antarctica during the same period.

Gore’s most alarming prediction involved catastrophic sea level rises of approximately 20 feet if Greenland or portions of Antarctica melted. He painted scenarios of Florida, San Francisco, the Netherlands, Beijing, Shanghai, and Bangladesh underwater, potentially displacing hundreds of millions of people. Two decades later, these mass displacements have not occurred.

Despite these inaccuracies, Gore continues to advocate his climate positions. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he drew attention for booing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during a dinner event. Lutnick later responded by calling it “the greatest honor” to be jeered by Gore, adding, “You all remember Al Gore told us, by today, in 2025, the whole ice cap would be gone, and Greenland would be green.”

As “An Inconvenient Truth” marks its anniversary, the disconnect between its predictions and current realities raises questions about Gore’s legacy and the accuracy of the climate forecasts that earned him international recognition and prestige.