Former Vice President Al Gore is calling on people to "break" free from the political influence held by the fossil fuel industry to prevent further damage from climate change.

Gore said the world needs to break through the "blockade that the fossil fuel industry and the big Petro states have been using to block progress."

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"The only thing that we need is sufficient political will, but as many pointed out, political will is itself a renewable resource," the former vice president and environmentalist said. "And these young people around the world are helping the world to renew it."

Gore's call to action comes after 2023 marked the hottest year on record, with a 1.46 degree Celsius increase between January and November 2023. This is a larger increase than the one recorded in 2016, the previous hottest year. However, the former vice president said there are ways to prevent climate change from bringing the world to the point of no return.

"We can do this if we just overcome the greed and political power of the big fossil fuel polluters who’ve been trying to control this process," Gore said in a Sunday interview with CNN's State of the Union. "It’s time for people at the grassroots level in every country to speak up. And the good news is that it’s happening, too.”

Gore pointed to recent instances of floods, mudslides, and "mega-storms" that have impacted the U.S. and other countries across the world, including in the Hawaiian Islands. Maui suffered devastating wildfires in August that led to 100 deaths and the destruction of thousands of acres of wildlife, including the nearly 2,200 acres alone that burned in the historic town of Lahaina.

The former vice president said people are already being driven from their homes, and the world is seeing "an expansion of areas" that are "physiologically unlivable."

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"If we don't take action, there could be as many as 1 billion climate refugees crossing international borders in the next several decades," Gore said. "Well, a few million has contributed to this wave of populist authoritarianism and dictatorships and so forth. What would a billion do? We can't do this. We could lose our capacity for self-governance."

"It sounds dire, but it is dire," Gore added.