Peace Prize winners issue urgent
calls for action
Declaring that "it's time to make peace with the planet," former US vice president Al Gore joined the head of the UN's panel on climate change in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 in Oslo on Monday. Both men issued more urgent calls for laws and treaties that can help stop global warming. Both Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change... PHOTO: BJØRN SIGURDSØN/SCANPIX  ...and Al Gore made passionate pleas for world leaders to act now, to halt global warming. PHOTO: HEIKO JUNGE/SCANPIX |
Both Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Gore were met by several standing ovations and extended applause, both before and after they made impassioned pleas for political action on a worldwide basis.
Oslo's City Hall was packed with government officials, ambassadors, royalty and invited guests, who listened as the Nobel Committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjøs, said that this year's choice was not a difficult decision. He linked the threats posed by climate change to the foundations of human stability and peace, noting that droughts, floods and other natural catastrophes tied to climate change threaten resources. That in turn threatens human coping mechanisms, and leads to conflict.
Mjøs hailed the IPCC for its efforts to research and document a scientific basis for climate change, calling the panel "extraordinary" and thanking "every individual in the IPCC for their great work."
He then called Gore "The Great Communicator," claiming that he is the individual who has done the most to drum up global awareness of the climate change crisis. He praised Gore for his courage and and tireless efforts to spread knowledge of the global warming threat.
"We thank you (both) for all you have done for Mother Earth," Mjøs said, before formally handing over the Nobel Peace Prize's gold medal and diploma.
Pachauri, accepting the prize on behalf of the UN panel, paid tribute to "all the scientists" and members of the IPCC, and to its earlier leadership. He called the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award them the prize "a clarion call for the protection of the earth."
Asking rhetorically whether polticians will listen to the voices of the scientists, he said that "if they do, I will feel doubly honoured."
Gore made an articulate and sometimes emotional call for action as well. "We have the ability to solve this crisis," he said, deploring how "too many" of the world's leaders choose to continue to ignore it.
He claimed there is still time to choose the fate of the earth, but noted that it requires political will to do so. He stressed common effort and shared responsibility, and called for a new international treaty on climate change by 2010, two years earlier than now expected.
He repeated calls for an international moratorium on any coal burning plant that lacks carbon recapture technology, and he also for a price on carbon in the form of taxes that would reduce carbon emissions.
And he chided his own homeland, the US, and China, for being the world's greatest polluters and failing to do enough to cut emissions.
He quoted Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in saying that "the future is knocking on our door," ending with a plea that "we will rise, and we will act." And with that, everyone from King Harald to those in the back of the room rose themselves, in ovation.
Nina Berglund
Nobel lecture by by R. K. Pachauri, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
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