Gore in the Oval Office, by invitation

Seven years ago, this could not have been how Al Gore envisaged his time in the Oval Office: as a winner and, at the same time, as a guest.

In one of those life-can-be-awkward moments, Gore, who was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming, spent 40 minutes with President Bush on Monday before attending a ceremony honoring the American winners of the Nobel Prize.

It was the first time the former vice president had stepped into the Oval Office since 2001, after he won the popular vote but lost the disputed 2000 presidential election to Bush in the Electoral College. The two men have differed on many topics, but none quite so publicly as global warming -- on its causes, on possible ramifications and on steps to ameliorate it.

Gore described the meeting as “very cordial” and said of Bush: “He was very gracious in setting up the meeting. It was a very good and substantive conversation.”

The onetime rivals met privately before what has become a traditional Oval Office welcome for U.S. Nobel honorees. On Dec. 10, at a ceremony in Oslo, Gore -- along with a U.N. agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- will be formally awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to bring global attention to the dangers of a changing climate.

Monday’s cordiality contrasted sharply with the tone of a telephone conversation in the wee hours of Nov. 8, 2000, at the start of what turned into a five-week postelection campaign.

Gore had initially conceded defeat in a call to Bush, then called a second time to withdraw the concession. Bush’s response prompted Gore to famously snap: “You don’t have to be snippy about it.”

Monday’s meeting was the third for the two men since the election was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, and the first in which they apparently focused on a substantive issue.

Gore said he and Bush had “a private meeting, and I’m not going to say anything about it.”

Did they talk about global warming?

“Of course we talked about global warming -- the whole time,” Gore said.

After the private session, Gore was joined in the Oval Office by Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, who are being honored with the Nobel Prize for medicine for their discoveries in stem cell research, and Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson, winners of the Nobel for economics. A third economics winner, Leonid Hurwicz, was unable to attend, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said.

Three members of the U.S. delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- Sharon Hays, Susan Solomon and Harlan L. Watson -- also attended the ceremony.

Arriving by car, Gore and his wife, Tipper, were driven to a side entrance and did not have to walk through the White House gates or go through weapons screening as most other visitors do. But they left on foot and found themselves in the midst of a pack of reporters and photographers as they walked, hand in hand, along Pennsylvania Avenue. They cut across rush-hour traffic at midblock before ducking into an office building on 17th Street, a block and a half from the executive mansion.

Gore viewed the meeting, a close friend said, as an opportunity “to put some focus on an issue he cares about,” as he has in other meetings with various heads of state.

Although Gore and Bush have differed on the subject, the friend added, “the vice president holds out a lot of hope the president and administration will be a part of a much-needed solution.”

The White House emphasized before the meeting that Bush had called Gore to extend a personal invitation and that the ceremony honoring the prize-winners was scheduled to ensure that Gore could attend.

Asked whether Bush invited Gore in order to hear about global warming or as an opportunity to make amends over the 2000 election, Perino said, “I didn’t psychoanalyze the president to find out why he decided to invite Al Gore to the White House. . . . It’s a friendly and neighborly thing to do, to invite someone to come to the White House,” she said. “It’s not something that was calculated.”

And -- seven years, two weeks, and five days after election day 2000 -- she added: “We have a great tradition in this country of political rivals being able to put the past behind them and to work together for the benefit of the American people.”

james.gerstenzang@latimes.com

Times staff writer Theo Milonopoulos contributed to this report.