US:Former US vice-president Al Gore has said he hopes his award yesterday of the Nobel Peace Prize will raise consciousness about climate change throughout the world. He promised to give his share of the $1.5 million prize money to a group that tries to change public opinion about global warming.
The Norwegian committee awarded the prize jointly to Mr Gore and to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been studying and reporting on the threat of global warming for two decades.
"This is just the beginning," Mr Gore said at a meeting in Palo Alto, California, of the Alliance for Climate Protection, which will receive his prize money.
"Now is the time to elevate global consciousness about the challenges that we face."
Yesterday's award encouraged Democrats who have been pressing Mr Gore to make a late entry into the 2008 presidential race but his former campaign manager, Donna Brazile, said such a move was unlikely.
"I don't know if this will re-shape him or allow him to move back gracefully into politics. I believe Gore wants to be above the fray and not back in the middle," she told ABC News.
Mr Gore has said repeatedly that he does not intend to return to politics but he has avoided ruling out another presidential bid.
A "Draft Gore" group this week took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times calling on him to seek the Democratic nomination.
In its citation, the Nobel prize committee praised the former vice-president's "strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change.
"He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted."
Earlier this year, Mr Gore won an Academy Award for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth which highlighted the role of human activity in climate change and the danger it represents.
"We face a true planetary emergency," Mr Gore said yesterday.
"The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.
"It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."
The Nobel committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, insisted that the prize was not a criticism of the Bush administration, which rejected the Kyoto protocol and has been criticised for failing to take enough action on climate change.
"We would encourage all countries, including the big countries, to challenge, all of them, to think again and to say what can they do to conquer global warming. The bigger the powers, the better that they come in front of this," Dr Mjoes said.
A White House spokesman said that President George Bush was "happy" about yesterday's award but said the president had no plans to call Mr Gore to congratulate him personally.