AL GORE is used to being the main attraction. But at Copenhagen, he is reduced to a sideshow, albeit one with a celebrity buzz that few in climate convention land can muster. On his first day at the summit, the former US vice-president launched a report on the increasing pace of melting Arctic ice.
In the spirit of a conference that allowed 46,000 people to register for entry into a building that holds only 15,000, Mr Gore was allocated a room with a capacity of barely 100, leaving four times as many outside jostling for entry.
He warned the Arctic could be free of summer sea ice within five to seven years and that the cap could melt by about 2030. He was later repudiated by the scientist behind the work he was quoting. The projections were bad, said Wieslaw Maslowski, a climatologist at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, but not that bad.
On day two, Mr Gore gave a speech from a crowded side room, leading to a crush outside the door. His message was not optimistic: ''My plea to you is: realise what is at stake and reach a result that gives momentum to the process.''
His second assault on next year's calendar was a call for the major 2010 climate summit, scheduled for Mexico City in December, to be brought forward to July to advance efforts on an elusive legal treaty.
Across the convention centre, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was using his folksy charm to highlight small-scale ways of tackling climate change at an event highlighting the central role states, provinces and cities can play in tackling climate change. Comedy was not Mr Schwarzenegger's strength when he was making films; neither is it in his role as a politician. After a gushing introduction, the Governator said: ''Thank you. It is exactly the way I wrote it … just joking.''
And then: ''I love giving this speech here because I'm not the only one who has an accent - it's a great place to come.''
His speech was a mix of vaudeville and evangelical zeal - for California and the role of local governments in righting the ship.
He said the greatest contribution from the flailing Copenhagen summit might be just to give ''momentum, purpose and hope'' to those endeavouring to cut emissions. He said cities, states and provinces should be the ''laboratories for new ideas'' on climate change.
Elsewhere, Prince Charles gave a much grimmer assessment as he helped launch the high-level section of the talks. ''We appear intent upon consuming the planet,'' he warned. ''As our planet's life-support system begins to fail and our very survival is brought into question, remember that our children and grandchildren will ask not what our generation said but what it did.''
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