Gore, now an environmental activist, likened the two countries to the notorious American bank robbers during a visit to Australia to promote his film on global warming -- "An inconvenient truth".

The Kyoto Protocol aims to restrict the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, and the US and Australia are the only two developed countries that haven't ratified the pact.

"I sincerely believe if Australia joined the rest of the world community in the Kyoto process, then the pressure on (US President George W.) Bush would be enormous, just enormous," Gore told reporters in Sydney.

He said he was grateful Australian Prime Minister John Howard had been to see his film, even though Howard said it smacked of a "peeved politician" sniping at the Bush administration.

Gore, who narrowly lost the race for the presidency to Bush in 2000, said he would not expect Howard to "immediately praise it to the skies, given the history of his opposition to what I have been saying".

"But I appreciate him seeing it. I like him, I really do, even if he doesn't like my movie. If some of the information in it got through, I'm very happy about that."

He said it was significant that Howard had in recent days acknowledged a "damaging increase" in carbon dioxide emissions and thrown his weight behind a global carbon trading scheme to reduce greenhouse gases.

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