Al Gore and UN’s IPCC win Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Price for 2007 has been jointly awarded to leading climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Norwegian Nobel Committee 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.”
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Hilary Benn said:
"I would like to congratulate Al Gore and the IPCC on this award. They have each made a pioneering contribution to the world's understanding of the threat posed to every one of us by climate change. The best way we can honour this contribution is to act now to prevent it from happening."
The Nobel committee said the IPCC’s scientific reports, issued over the last two decades, had "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming". They praised Al Gore as one of the world’s leading environmental politicians and “probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.”
By awarding the prize, the Nobel committee hopes to place a sharper focus on protecting the world’s future climate.
Page published: 12 October 2007