Gore, U.N. Body Win Nobel Peace Prize
By Howard Schneider and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 12, 2007; 5:52 AM
Former Vice President Al Gore Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today along with a United Nations panel that monitors climate change for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to stop it.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as "the single individual" responsible for convincing world governments that climate change was real, caused by human activity, and posed a threat to society.
Gore has focused on the issue through books, promotional events and his Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, incorporating the work of some 2,000 scientists, has been monitoring evidence of climate change and possible solutions since 1988. The panel is a joint project between the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization.
Between the science showcased by the panel and Gore's advocacy, the two helped "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 committee said.
"Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced clear scientific support."
As with last year's award to Bangladeshi banker Mohammad Yunus, whose pioneering use of small loans to the very poor helped contribute to the stability of developing nations, this year's prize focused on an issue not directly related to war and peace, but which was seen as critical to maintaining social stability.
The panel said that global warming "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."
Highlighting those risks, and the role of man in both creating and mitigating them, has defined public life for Gore, 59, since he lost the closely fought presidential election in 2000 to President Bush.
From that difficult race, in which he won the popular vote but lost the electoral college in a case ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, he emerged as a controversial figure -- ridiculed by opponents as an environmental extremist, and hailed by supporters as "the Gore-acle" for his foresight on issues like the Internet and climate change.
The Nobel is a vindication that could impact the upcoming presidential race: Gore's supporters have repeatedly urged him to enter the race, and the luster of the peace prize may add to that push.
But the former vice president, whose background includes a Harvard education and deep roots in Tennessee politics, has seemed disinclined to enter the fray. He has focused more on undertakings like last summer's "Live Earth" concerts, which promoted environmentalism in a series of star-studded rock and roll shows around the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment