Climate champ Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize

Former US Vice-President Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a campaigner against global warming.Mr Gore, 59, won the prestigious award along with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).The IPCC groups 2,500 researchers from over 130 nations and issued reports this year blaming human activities for climate changes ranging from more heat waves to floods.The accolade was announced by Ole Danbolt Mjøs, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.Mr Gore, who had been widely-tipped to win the prize, found a new career as a campaigner for climate change having lost to George W Bush in the 2000 US elections.His 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth won a best documentary Oscar and featured a stark warning of the dangers of global warming.The Nobel prize is worth 10 million Swedish crowns (£766,000) and will be handed out in Oslo on December 10.A statement by the committee said: "The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind."They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming."Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming."Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent."Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing."His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world's future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind."Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man's control."© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

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ITN | October 12, 2007

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