CNN correspondent Bill Weir praised Al Gore as a "climate Paul Revere."
Weir, the chief climate correspondent for CNN, spoke with the former vice president about climate change outside the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
"Fittingly unseasonably warm day here on the east side of Manhattan as world leaders converge to talk about a climate in crisis," Weir said.
He introduced Gore as a former vice president who is knowledgeable about the climate and asked him what he thought about the lack of American leadership at the United Nations meetings.
"Well, I think that to focus on the good news side of it. Donald Trump being the face of global climate denial actually is motivating the kind of uprising and enthusiasm we saw last Friday with these millions of young people marching," Gore said. "I'm optimistic. We're behind at the beginning of the second half, but we've got the tools you need to address this crisis."
Following their dialogue, Weir called Gore a "climate Paul Revere" and said Gore "tried to sound the alarm" with his film, An Inconvenient Truth.
"Very little has been done. The world continues to burn carbon at an unsustainable relentless rate, but yet he continues to hold that message with unflappable optimism somehow," Weir said.
Weir didn't mention that Gore owns several homes and his Nashville home used over 20 times as much energy as the U.S. average, according to a 2017 report. During Gore's 2007 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he incorrectly predicted arctic ice would vanish by 2013.