Al Gore speaks at Texas Southern University last February. (Photo: Climate Reality Action Fund/Instagram)

(CNSNews.com) – The nation’s two most recent Democratic vice presidents got together (virtually) for an Earth Day event Wednesday, and agreed that defeating President Trump in November was “crucial” in the campaign against climate change.

Former Vice President Al Gore (1993-2001), a leading climate change activist, threw his support behind the White House campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden (2009-2017), calling the contest “the most consequential choice in a presidential election that we’ve ever had in American history.”

Gore said 152 million tons of greenhouse gases were being put into the atmosphere every day, “and every day it traps as much extra heat as would be released by 500,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding in the earth’s atmosphere –”

“That’s incredible,” broke in Biden, raising his hands and shaking his head.

“We need policy changes,” said Gore. “And that means we need to change some of the policy makers, particularly the one in the White House right now. And that’s why I am so proud to endorse your candidacy, Joe.”

Gore said that if he was speaking to just one undecided voter this year, he would tell that person, “This is not complicated. If you care about the climate crisis, if you want to start solving the climate crisis, this is not rocket science. This is the most consequential choice in a presidential election that we’ve ever had in American history.”

“Donald Trump is the face of climate denial globally,” Gore said, accusing the president of “lifting the constraints on polluters” and rolling back environmental protections.

Gore said victory for Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee following Sen. Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign earlier this month, was “absolutely crucial.”

“I want to do everything I can to convince everybody that cares about the climate crisis, particularly those people, that this is a – this is a no-brainer, this is a real simple choice. And if anybody has any doubt about that, come talk to me.”

“Well, Al, thanks so much, it means a lot to me,” said Biden. “You know I often say, beating Trump won’t end climate change, but it’s a critical first step.”

In the course of their discussion, Gore noted that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord will formally take effect one day after the November election.

“And then you – again, God willing – when you’re inaugurated,” he told Biden, “thirty days later you can put us right back in the Paris agreement, and you can rally the other nations of the world to once again follow U.S. leadership.”

The Trump administration in August 2017 lodged notification that the U.S. would pull out of the accord, but could only give formal notice last November – three years after the treaty entered into force. On Nov. 4 last year the administration duly deposited its withdrawal notification, and the exit will become effective one year later, one day after the Nov. 3 election.

Biden told Gore that he would, upon become president, immediately rejoin the Paris agreement.

Within his first 100 days he would also call “major polluters in the world” to meet in Washington, and “up the ante” on the Paris commitments – that is, secure more ambitious national pledges than those made earlier.

Concluded in late 2015, the Paris agreement aims to prevent average global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, in a bid to avert what advocates warn could be catastrophic effects on the planet.

President Obama committed the U.S. to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 26-28 percent below the levels they were at in 2005, by the year 2025.

When campaigning for the White House, Trump pledged to “cancel” the accord, accusing Obama of backing a deal that “gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use right here in America.”

Speaking at the State Department on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that between 2005 and 2018 – the most recent year for which data is available – U.S. carbon emissions had decreased by more than ten percent, even as the economy grew by 25 percent.

“China, conversely, has been the largest annual emitter since 2006 and it expects that its emissions will continue to grow until around 2030, thus offsetting the progress of countries all around the world in reducing global emissions,” he said.