the public." The comments mark a turnaround for the nation's most prominent advocate for action on global warming, whose work on the climate problem has earned him a Nobel Prize and was adapted into an Oscar-winning documentary. Gore toasted Obama's inauguration with a "green" ball. He helped the White House press the House of Representatives to pass a global warming bill in 2009 that would have set the first-ever limits on the pollution blamed for global warming. It died in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Gore also advised Obama before the president participated in international climate negotiations in 2009. Obama's last-minute appearance in Copenhagen helped salvage a nonbinding deal to reduce greenhouse gases. In the essay, Gore calls the Copenhagen result a "rhetorical agreement" that provided cover for the administration's inability to commit to enforceable targets for global warming pollution. Without legislation, Obama couldn't follow through on his promises to cut emissions. "During the final years of the Bush-Cheney administration, the rest of the world was waiting for a new president who would aggressively tackle the climate crisis, and when it became clear that there would be no real change from the Bush era, the agenda at Copenhagen changed from `How do we complete this historic breakthrough?' to `How can we paper over this embarrassing disappointment?"' Gore writes, referring to the talks, where 193 nations met to draft a new global treaty to reduce greenhouse gases. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which the U.S. never participated and Gore helped to broker, expires in 2012. Gore declined an Associated Press request for an interview. Bush pulled out of Kyoto and refused to control heat-trapping pollution even after the Supreme Court said the government had the authority to move forward forcefully on this front and federal scientists determined that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases posed dangers to human health. Obama, by contrast, has tightened fuel economy standards to reduce global warming pollution from automobiles, included billions of dollars for climate-friendly projects in the economic stimulus package and started controlling emissions under existing law. As recently as April, at a Democratic fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama said he was "not finished when it comes to energy." Mentioning the climate deniers in Congress, Obama said, "Unless we are able to move forward in a serious way on clean energy, we're putting o