Gore’s remarks came on the eve of an Angus Reid poll showing Quebec leads the nation in global-warming awareness at 83 per cent. He and Suzuki were treated to repeated standing ovations at the conference of 5,000 organized by Youth Action Montreal, a coalition of youth and student groups originating out of Concordia University.

Suzuki noted that climate change has been on top of the public’s agenda before, in 1988, and challenged young people not to let it slide to the back burner again.

A day earlier in Toronto, Gore, who has brought the climate change issue to audiences around the world with his slide show and Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said climate-change skeptics “are diminishing in numbers faster than the glaciers.”