CANBERRA—Climate change campaigner Al Gore has stopped short of backing federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd, but says ratifying the Kyoto Protocol should be foremost in Australian voter's minds.
Mr Rudd has promised a Labor government would immediately ratify the global greenhouse treaty, while Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out doing so.
Australia and the United States are the only two developed nations not to have ratified Kyoto.
Mr Gore, the former US vice president whose An Inconvenient Truth documentary has helped make tackling climate change a global cause, said he didn't want to interfere in the federal election by endorsing Mr Rudd.
"That issue is the most important issue in the world," Mr Gore told Sky News.
"And I would say that whoever in Australia agrees with the point of view I've just expressed, - that we have to solve the climate crisis - ought to look very carefully at the fact that one candidate's for ratifying Kyoto and the other is not".
"Certainly, if I were a voter in Australia that would be an extremely powerful, overriding issue," he said.
"But I'm trying not to interfere."
Mr Gore said he liked Mr Howard personally, despite the prime minister refusing to meet him during a previous visit to Australia.
"I think the reason was that he was uncomfortable discussing the Kyoto treaty and the climate crisis," Mr Gore said.
"That's the only explanation I can give for it."
The American politician also criticised the Sydney Declaration on climate change brokered by Australia at the recent APEC meeting, saying it was "worse than doing nothing".
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