Gore and UN share Nobel peace prize

The former US vice-president Al Gore and the UN climate change panel will share the 2007 Nobel peace prize for raising awareness of the risks of climate change, the Nobel committee announced on Oct. 12. Chosen from a field of 181 candidates, Gore and the UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) will split the $1.5 million prize. The Norwegian committee praised Gore for his strong commitment to the struggle against climate change. Gore responded by telling a press conference that climate change was the "most dangerous challenge we've ever faced." "I will be doing everything I can to try to understand how to best use the honor and recognition of this award as a way of speeding up the change in awareness and the change in urgency," Gore said. "It truly is a planetary emergency: we have to respond quickly. I'm going back to work right now. This is just the beginning." The Norwegian committee said Gore was "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted." Gore said he would donate his share of the prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a group seeking to change public opinion in the US and around the world about the urgency of dealing with climate change. "I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel peace prize," Gore said. "This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the IPCC -- the world's preeminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis -- a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years." The Nobel committee said the IPCC had created an ever broader, informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. "Thousands of scientists and officials from over 100 countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming," the panel said. "Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support." The Nobel committee said that by awarding the prize to the IPCC and Gore, it wanted to bring a sharper focus on the processes and decisions needed to protect the world's future climate. "Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man's control," the panel warned.