Al Gore shares win of Nobel Peace Prize
 The Nobel Peace Prize committee on Friday turned its sights on the battle against climate change by giving the 2007 award to former US Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Gore has reinvented himself as a climate warrior since failing in his bid to become US president in 2000. The IPCC is a UN body of about 3,000 experts which cautiously stepped up pressure on governments by pointing to the human role in steadily mounting global temperatures.
The prize was awarded "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," the Norwegian Nobel committee said.
Gore is bound to attract most of the attention when the winners claim their 10 million Swedish kronor (1.5 million dollar/1.08 million euro) prize on December 10.
Bill Clinton's former vice president has helped put global warming at the top of the international agenda. His 2006 film "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar for best documentary.
The movie was the product of years of lectures, often delivered to audiences numbering in single digits, as the Democratic politician pushed to wrench climate change back on to Washington's radar.
Some experts say Gore's campaign, the Oscar and now the Nobel Peace Prize could persuade him to make a new last minute bid to secure the Democratic nomination for next year's US presidential election.
But Gore said in July that "I don't have any plans or intentions to be a candidate again and really the main reason is I'm involved in a different kind of campaign."
The Supreme Court handed 2000's agonizingly close presidential election to George W. Bush, who promptly abandoned US support for the international Kyoto pact on climate change while a devastated Gore rued his fate.
However, Gore emerged from political hibernation with little bitterness over his electoral loss, joking to one audience: "I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States of America."
Shedding his image as a brainy but dull policy wonk, Gore oversaw the Live Earth concert in July.
"If you had told me 10 years ago that people were going to be appealing to me for tickets to a hot rock concert through my parents, I would have fallen over," his daughter Karenna Gore Schiff told October's Vanity Fair magazine.
The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The 3,000 atmospheric scientists, oceanographers, ice specialists, economists and other experts have to give policymakers a summary of the latest knowledge about climate change.
Their view is required to be neutral and balanced, with conclusions based only on what is proven and with honesty about areas where there is doubt, ignorance or debate.
The IPCC has issued only four "assessment reports" in its brief existence, for these massive documents -- each the thickness of several phone books -- take years to compile.
But their impact grows with each publication.
They have progressively silenced the once-mighty lobby of climate sceptics and prompted even the most reluctant political leader to pledges of action, providing the compass for critical talks in Bali in December on deepening cuts in greenhouse-gas pollution.
In scientific terms, the reports have rapped out an ever-stronger message that carbon emissions from fossil fuels are trapping solar heat, causing Earth's surface to warm.
The latest assessment, published in three volumes in February and April this year, detected the first signs of change to the planet's climate system, through the loss of Arctic ice, Alpine glaciers and retreating permafrost.
On current trends, drought, flood and more violent storms are likely to become more common, accelerating the risk of hunger, homelessness and water-borne sickness by century's sickness, it predicted.
Despite its reputation for neutrality, the IPCC has not escaped accusations of political meddling.
Bob Watson, a leading British-American scientist who was frequently outspoken about climate change, was ousted as its chairman in 2002 after only one term. Pressure from the Bush administration forced Watson out, sources at the time said.
Watson was replaced by a vice chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, a respected Indian science administrator.
This year, a fierce row erupted over how the 4AR should describe the likely impacts of climate change.
At US, Saudi and Chinese insistence, the draft report ditched tough-worded text that warned of damage to local ecosystems and economies.
(includes wire sources)
The following video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast on October 12, 2007.
|
del.icio.us 
