Al Gore and IPCC win Nobel Prize
AL Gore and the IPCC have jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize.For those of you unsure about how drought, rising sea levels, crops shifts and mass migration threaten security, i wrote a previous article on the topic here.
Story via AFP
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded today to former US vice president Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Norwegian Nobel committee announced in Oslo.
It said they had been awarded the prize "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." Gore, a vice president to Bill Clinton and failed candidate for the White House in 2000, has reinvented himself as a champion of climate change with his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The IPCC, a UN body comprised of about 3000 atmospheric scientists, oceanographers, ice specialists, economists and other experts, is the world's top scientific authority on global warming and its impact. The peace laureates will receive a gold medal, a diploma and 10 million Swedish kronor ($A1.7 million) to be shared between them.
The formal prize ceremony will be held in Oslo as tradition dictates on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the prize's creator, Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel. The prizes were first awarded in 1901. Earlier this week, the prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry were announced. Yesterday, British writer Doris Lessing won the Nobel Literature Prize for five decades of epic novels that have covered feminism and politics, as well her youth in Africa. The economics prize will wrap up the 2007 Nobel season on Monday.
Hopefully this award will do something meaningful, namely putting climate change firmly on the agenda of US presidential candidates.
"It was a surprise," said Carola Traverso Saibante of the IPCC."We would have been happy even if [Gore] had received it alone because it is a recognition of the importance of this issue."
[UPDATE]
Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC is overwhelmed.NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the U.N. panel on climate change that won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore, said on Friday he was overwhelmed by the news.
"I can't believe it, overwhelmed, stunned,"Pachauri told reporters and co-workers after receiving the news on the phone at his office in New Delhi.
"I feel privileged sharing it with someone as distinguished as him," he added, referring to former U.S. Vice President Gore.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this year made the strongest ever link between mankind's activities and global warming -- gaining widespread publicity around the world.
he said.
"I expect this will bring the subject to the fore,"
Related Reading:
1.Margaret Beckett on Climate Change and Conflict
2. An overview of the possible links between climate change and war.
New Converage:
The story is now widely reported, from CNN, to the BBC, AP and Reuters.
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OSLO, Norway (AP) - Excerpts from the citation awarding the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso congratulated the winners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, saying the 27-member bloc remained committed to fighting global warming.
In a statement, Barroso said the efforts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore to raise awareness about man-made climate change had proved "an inspiration for politicians and citizens alike."
"The European Union remains committed to its ambitious goals in the field. I call on all our partners to take this Nobel Peace Prize as an encouragement to approach this challenge even more swiftly, and decisively," Barroso added.
The EU had been tipped as a possible contender for the award ahead of Friday's announcement.
Gore and UN panel win Nobel prize
Climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The committee said they had been chosen for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change".
Mr Gore, 59, was vice-president under Bill Clinton and has since devoted his efforts to environmental campaigning.
The UN's panel of 3,000 scientists is the top authority on global warming.
'Danger of war'
Announcing the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the recipients' efforts to "lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract [climate] change".
HAVE YOUR SAY
It would have made more sense to wait and see if Gore et al actually had an effect, but at least this might serve as a wake-up call to the naysayers
Geoff, Bensberg, Germany
It said it wanted to bring the "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states" posed by climate change into sharper focus.
The committee highlighted the series of scientific reports issued by the IPCC over the last two decades, which had "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming".
Mr Gore was praised as "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted", through his lectures, films and books.
'Overwhelmed'
"I can't believe it, overwhelmed, stunned," IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told reporters and co-workers after receiving the news on the phone at his office in New Delhi.
He later told a cheering crowd of co-workers and journalists outside his office in New Delhi he hoped the award would bring a "greater awareness and a sense of urgency" to the fight against global warming.
Mr Gore made a failed bid for the US presidency in 2000. Since then he has emerged as a leading climate campaigner - winning an Oscar for his 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth, an unlikely box-office hit.
The IPCC, established in 1988, is tasked with providing policymakers with neutral summaries of the latest expertise on climate change.
The two winners will share the $1.5m prize.
The Nobel committee closely guards the names of nominees, but this year speculation was high that the recipient would be linked to climate change campaigns.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7041082.stm
WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said he was honored to share the Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N. climate panel on Friday for their work on global warming and said he would donate all of the proceeds to the Alliance for Climate Protection.
"I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize," he said in a statement.
"This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- 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."
Gore also said he would donate all of his share of the proceeds.
"My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis."
Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmental activist who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, said she was thrilled that Al Gore and the IPCC this year's top peace honours.
"So I hope that the world will wake up to the fact that we are dealing here with a real crisis, that there is a real risk to the way of life as we know it on this planet," she told the US cable television network CNN.
"And these two persons have played a very special role and a very important role in bringing this message home," she said, referring to Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change organisation.
Even US President George Bush, who rejects mandatory international action against global warming, has acknowledged the role of human- made emissions in climate change, she noted.
Al Gore, congratulations on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Now it is time to announce your wish to become America's president, take your seat in the White House, and be the leader we have all been waiting for to move beyond the corrupt system of Empire and towards Earth community. Kudos to the Nobel Committee for realizing that sustainability is peace.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Beat-The-Energy-Crisis---Shop-for-Solar-or-Wind-Generator-Kits-With-Hookups-to-the-Power-Grid&id=773668
The big four retailers could speed this process along with just a little work. Profits and stock values would certainly benefit.
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