Al Gore, UN
Team Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Former Vice
President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
The award was given in recognition of their efforts to spread
awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for
counteracting it.
Challenge
to Humanity
An highly elated Al Gore described the award as a moral and
spiritual challenged to humanity. In his words, “I am deeply
honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. 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."
Gore won an Academy Award this year for his film "An
Inconvenient Truth," a documentary on global warming, and had
been widely expected to win the prize.
He said he would donate his share of the 1.5 million dollars
that accompanies the prize to the non-profit Alliance for
Climate Protection.
UN’s
Reaction
Dr Saleemul Huq, Head of the Climate Change in a statement
expressed the deep concern of the Nobel peace prize committee to
the recognition of scientific evidences on global warming.
According to him, the evidences show overwhelmingly that human
activities are changing our climate change in a way that
threatens peace, security, the natural environment and future
generations.
For Dr Huq, "the award recognises the work of hundreds of
scientists from all around the world who have been working for
years to shed light on what is happening to our climate, what is
causing it to change, what the consequences of that change are
and what the global community can and must do to avert a global
disaster.”
The Verdict
Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the prize committee, said the
award should not be seen as singling out the Bush administration
for criticism.
"A peace prize is never a criticism of anything. A peace prize
is a positive message and support to all those champions of
peace in the world."
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said 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."
“Al Gore has fought the environment battle even as vice
president,” Mjoes said. “Many did not listen ... but he carried
on.”
Bush
Albatross
President Bush had abandoned the Kyoto Protocol because he said
it would harm the U.S. economy and because it did not require
immediate cuts by countries like China and India.
The treaty aimed to put the biggest burden on the richest
nations that contributed the most carbon emissions.
The U.S. Senate voted against mandatory carbon reductions before
the Kyoto negotiations were completed. The treaty was never
presented to the Senate for ratification by the Clinton
administration.
MSN/UN/Qasim
