THE announcement today that former US Vice President, Al Gore, has won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will change politics. He can take credit for the fact that the politics of climate change are now at the center of the global political agenda. There are nay-sayers who believe that Gore is a cynical lobbyist who is using the climate change issue to invent a fresh political career. I disagree with them. I covered the 2000 US Presidential election for the Sunday Times of South Africa and it was very apparent then that Gore was prepared to go out on a limb on environmental issues with no serious political benefit at the polls. What he has done is to popularise a very important issue. How the politics of climate change plays out is a different matter. From sunnier and sunnier South Africa, well done! An extract from the announcment:

Indications of changes in the earth’s future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They 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.

See reaction from around the world here.

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4. Tutu congratulates Obama on Nobel Prize – full text
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