GREEN campaigners in the city told tonight how “inspired” they had been by a talk from former American vice president Al Gore.

Mr Gore visited Keble College for the end of a three-day conference organised by the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, and urged delegates to step up their campaign against climate change.

More than 200 academics, environmentalists and business leaders gathered to hear the 30-minute talk from Mr Gore and to discuss the question Is there a model for low-carbon growth Mr Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, including making the film An Inconvenient Truth, said: “Young people, regardless of country or religion are bringing a new awareness to this challenge. All around the world, I am feeling this rising consciousness, certainly among young people but not confined to them, demanding that we take action.”

Mr Gore told delegates: “We have the tools available to us to solve three climate crises but we only need to solve one.

“We have everything we need except political will, and political will is a renewable resource.”

Wolvercote environmentalist Mark Lynas, the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, who attended the conference, said: “No-one in this field can inspire people like Al Gore — he has inspired people the world over during the past few years and to have him here in Oxford is a huge privilege.”