Gore, Climate Activists, Head Contenders for Nobel Peace PrizeBy Bunny Nooryani
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Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Canadian activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier are among contenders for this year's Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning about the threat of climate change, according to Stein Toennesson, director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.
Buddhist monk Thich Quang Do, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and humanitarian group Save the Children may also be among the 181 nominations for the 10 million-krona ($1.5 million) prize, Toennesson said in an interview. The winner is announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee tomorrow.
``The most likely candidates to win are Al Gore and Sheila Watt-Cloutier,'' Toennesson said. ``It must be tempting for the committee to give the prize to honor work in an area that is at the top of the global agenda.''
Gore, 59, last year published the book and Oscar-winning documentary film ``An Inconvenient Truth'' as part of a campaign against global warming. Watt-Cloutier, 53, has shown how climate change threatens the way of life for indigenous people in the Arctic. Both were nominated by Norwegian members of parliament.
Global warming caused by greenhouse gases is raising sea levels and leading to storms, droughts and other climate disruptions that threaten to displace hundreds of millions of people from Africa to Alaska, according to scientists with the United Nations. The UN will hold a convention in Bali in December to discuss measures to limit emissions.
`Chaos and Terror'
``Climate change has the potential to create a lot of chaos and terror as resources become scarce,'' Watt-Cloutier said in an interview in May. ``If we can address it now, then we have the potential to make this the issue that brought people together around the world.''
An award to an environmentalist would mark a shift in how the five-member Nobel committee defines peace work. The prize has often gone to people working to end armed conflicts or fighting for democratic and human rights. Kenya's Wangari Maathai was the first environmentalist to get it, in 2004.
``There are already climate wars unfolding and the worst area for that is the Sahel belt in Africa,'' Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, told reporters in Oslo on Sept. 28. ``Nomads fight pastoral farmers because there is less land available, because of long-term climate change.''
Secret List
Nominations for the peace prize are kept secret by the Oslo- based Nobel committee, though some candidates are made known by the nominators. Of the 181 nominees for this year's award, 46 were for organizations and the rest for individuals.
Previous winners, parliaments and governments, university chancellors and leaders of peace research institutes can propose candidates. Researchers familiar with the nomination process make predictions of the nominees and their chances of success.
Ahtisaari, 70, may be recognized for his role in brokering a 2005 peace accord between the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement. Other contenders include Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved more than 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust, according to Toennesson.
The committee may also want to draw attention to people fighting for political and human rights, such as Thich Quang Do, who is held under house arrest in Vietnam, Chechnyan lawyer Lida Yusupova or Chinese dissident Rebiya Kadeer, he said.
Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank won last year for advancing social and economic development by giving loans to the poor. Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama are among past recipients.
Economics Award
The peace prize was created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will in 1897 and first awarded in 1901. Nobel also set up prizes for achievements in literature, chemistry, medicine and physics. The winners in these categories are picked by the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation.
U.S. scientists Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Martin Evans of the U.K. on Oct. 8 won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their work on embryonic stem-cell research.
Albert Fert of France and Peter Gruenberg of Germany on Oct. 9 won the physics prize for their work in developing the technology that has led to miniaturized hard disks for computers and music players. Gerhard Ertl of Germany yesterday was awarded the chemistry prize for research that increased scientists' understanding of how to clean car emissions. The literature prize will be awarded today.
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If Gore wins he will join the likes of Jimmy Carter and Yassir Arafat. Seems about right to me.