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CLIMATE CHANGE CHAMPION: Former US vice-president Gore has reinvented himself from failed US presidential candidate to champion of climate change with his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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OSLO - FORMER US vice-president turned climate campaigner Al Gore and the United Nation's climate change panel yesterday won this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
The prestigious prize was awarded for their efforts to spread the word about global warming and to lay the foundations for fighting it.
Mr Gore, 59, former vice-president to Mr Bill Clinton and failed candidate for the White House in 2000, had been widely tipped to win.
He has reinvented himself in recent years as a champion of climate change with his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
'His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change,' a citation from the Nobel panel said.
'He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.'
Mr Gore shares this year's award with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a UN body comprised of about 3,000 atmospheric scientists, oceanographers, ice specialists, economists and other experts.
Set up in 1988, it is the world's top scientific authority on global warming and its impact.
Climate change has moved to the top of the world agenda this year, following two stark reports from the panel earlier this year.
It warned that world temperatures were likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 deg C by 2100. Drought, floods and more violent storms were likely to become more common, accelerating the risk of hunger, homelessness and water-borne sickness, it predicted.
'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,' the committee said.
Since the reports were published in February and April, governments and companies have been working to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, which are thought to cause global warming.
Carbon dioxide is produced by the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal.
Mr Gore and the IPCC were selected from 181 candidates for this year's honour.
The Nobel committee keeps its nominees for the award secret. But its decision to award the peace prize to a climate campaigner continues the trend of broadening its scope beyond the traditional fields of conflict prevention and resolution and disarmament.
Mr Gore said he was 'deeply honoured' to win. 'This award is even more meaningful because I have the honour of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change... a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years.'
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, 67, said he was 'overwhelmed, stunned' by the win.
'I expect this will bring the subject to the fore and will hopefully create greater awareness and a sense of urgency,' he told a cheering crowd of dozens of co-workers and journalists outside his office in New Delhi.
IPCC member Wong Poh Poh, an associate professor in the National University of Singapore's geography department, said the award would boost the work of the panel.
'Leaders of many nations have already recognised that climate change is also a security issue,' he said. 'Imagine the problem of 'climate refugees' if we do not tackle the rising sea level threatening many nations.
'Tackling climate change is not just an environmental issue, but will reduce the tensions around the globe.'
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS
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