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Al Gore Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Former US Vice President Al Gore is to become the recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He will share the prize with the IPCC for their common work in spreading the word about the dangers of climate change.

Officials at the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday that former United States Vice President Al Gore will be awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Gore, 59, will share the honor with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The committee said Gore and IPCC would be bestowed with one of the world's top honors "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."

Gore, who served as vice president under Bill Clinton, helped to raise international awareness of the the threat of climate change with his film "An Inconvenient Truth." He has repeatedly been named as a candidate in speculation over who would get the top honor in recent weeks.

The committee also named IPCC as the co-recipient. Founded in 1998 by two UN organizations, the World Meteorolgical Organization and the United Nations Enivornment Program, the climate panel is responsible for collecting and assessing global climate change research and for making those findings accessible to governments and people alike. Earlier this year, IPCC released three reports based on this research that have provided the most comprehensive assessment yet of the threat of warming climate and the devastating changes it could bring to the planet.

Speaking to a Norwegian television station, IPCC head Rajendra Pauchari said: "I'm completely overwhelmed with emotion. This prize is being given to the international United Nations community and to all the countries who have supported us." Before the announcement came in Oslo, Pauchari said repeatedly that nobody deserved the award more than Gore.

Other favorites for this year's prize included former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari and the European Union. According to a report broadcast by Finnish TV station NRK, the EU was considered because of its 50 years as a peace-promoting bloc.

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl also made the list of 181 officially nominated candidates. Kohl was considered because of his work in contributing to a peaceful end to the Cold War and for reuniting East and West Germany. The last German to receive the Nobel Peace Prize was Willy Brandt, who obtained it during his term as chancellor in 1971. He was awarded the prize for his work in improving the West's relations with East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union.

According to the Nobel Institute, candidates this year also included 46 organizations. Last year, the Nobel Committee said it would use a fundamentally broader definition of the word peace in issuing future awards.

In 2006, the Peace Prize, which includes a €1.1 million endowment, went to Bangladeshi banker Mohammed Yunus. He received the prize for his work in providing microcredits to the poor -- a business the committee said helped to raise people out of poverty and help to prevent social conflicts.

The award is to be presented to Gore on Dec. 10, the day that the prize's creator, Alfred Nobel, died.

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