An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

The documentary follows Al Gore inside his climate work: updating his presentation, speaking at training programmes, walking through flooded streets and negotiating in the corridors of the Paris climate conference of 2015. The Paris section is the most concrete part; the talks over solar technology needed to bring India into the agreement are shown in detail. Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk direct. It is the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth from 2006. The first film was close to a record of a presentation; here the weight is on Gore's own work and on what changed in ten years. The strongest thing it shows is a comparison of the earlier predictions. The computer visualisations from ten years before are set beside real footage shot since. The decision of the United States to withdraw from the Paris agreement was added at the end; it was announced while the film was being prepared for release and the production was changed accordingly. The critical distance is limited; the narrative does not question Gore's own position and the political complexity of climate policy is simplified. Who it is for: viewers who follow the climate question and political documentary. Who it is not for: the structure is looser than the first film, the narrative turns around one person, and the scientific content stays thin.