Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize for climate campaign

Click here to see the trailer the video in YouTube.

October 12, 2007

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize today for warning the world about the dangers of global warming, and leading the campaign to persuade governments and individuals to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

The former US vice-president will share the £750,000 prize with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations panel which has worked for two decades to establish consensus on the science of man-made warming.

Mr Gore said tonight that climate change is the most “dangerous and urgent challenge” the world faces at the moment and said it is time to “elevate global consciousness” about the challenges of global warming.

I will be doing everything I can to try to understand how to best use the honour and recognition of this award as a way of speeding up the change in awareness and the change in urgency," said Mr Gore, who will donate 100 per cent of his prize money to the IPCC.

“It truly is a planetary emergency and we have to respond quickly.”

With his wife Tipper grinning widely by his side, Mr Gore would not answer any questions after his statement, including whether or not he would run for President.

The prize puts Mr Gore's name on what is perhaps history's most illustrious list, alongside such campaigners for freedom, democracy and human values as Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King.

He is not the first environmentalist to win the peace prize, which was given to Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan campaigner for sustainable development, three years ago. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said however that Mr Gore was one of the first politicians to understand the risks of climate change, and described him as "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding" of the challenge it presents.

Mr Gore said today that he was "deeply honoured" by the award. He added: "We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."

Mr Gore has become the international poster boy for the green movement, organising a chain of Live Earth rock concerts this year which attracted hundreds of music stars and celebrities to help raise the profile of climate change.

He is best known for presenting An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 documentary laying out the risks of global warming - although a UK High Court judge criticised it this week as "alarmist". The film won this year's Oscar for best documentary.