IndiaPost.com - Pachauri, Gore accept Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO: United Nations climate panel's chief scientist Rajendra Pachauri and former US vice president Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize here for sounding the alarm over global warming and spreading awareness on how to counteract it.

Gore shared the coveted award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was represented at the awards ceremony in Oslo by its leader Rajendra Pachauri. "We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency -- a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here," Gore said in prepared remarks released before his acceptance speech.

Each Nobel Prize includes a gold medal, a diploma and a 10 million Swedish kronor (USD 1.6 million) cash award. During the gala ceremony in Oslo's city hall, Gore and Pachauri accepted the peace prize before Norway's royalty, leaders and invited guests. "It is time to make peace with the planet," Gore said in the prepared remarks.

"We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war." He urged China and the US -- the world's biggest carbon emitters -- to "make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act." Governments, meanwhile, are meeting in Bali, Indonesia, to start work on a new international treaty to reduce climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions.

Pachauri warned the international community that continued negligence in protecting the world's heritage and natural resources could prove "extremely harmful" for the human race and lead to some irreversible impacts on biodiversity. "Neglect in protecting our heritage of natural resources could prove extremely harmful for the human race and for all species that share common space on planet earth," he said in his speech after receiving the prestigious Nobel Peace prize.

"This award being given to the IPCC, we believe goes fundamentally beyond a concern for the impacts of climate change on peace. Honoring the IPCC through the grant of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 in essence can be seen as a clarion call for the protection of the earth as it faces the widespread impacts of climate change," he said.

There are many lessons in human history which provide adequate warning about the chaos and destruction that could take place if "we remain guilty of myopic indifference" to the progressive erosion and decline of nature's resources, Pachauri, Chairman of New Delhi-based Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), said. In general, the impacts of climate change on some of the poorest and the most vulnerable communities in the world could prove extremely unsettling, he said. Climate change is expected to exacerbate current stresses on water resources.

On a regional scale, mountain snowpack, glaciers, and small ice caps play a crucial role in fresh water availability, he said. Pachauri said that IPCC, established in 1988, has not provided any directions on how conflicts inherent in the social implications of the impacts of climate change could be avoided or contained. Nevertheless, the Fourth Assessment Report provides scientific findings that other scholars can study and arrive at some conclusions on in relation to peace and security.

"Several parts of our reports have much information and knowledge that would be of considerable value for individual researchers and think tanks dealing with security issues as well as governments that necessarily are concerned with some of these matters," he said. It would be particularly relevant to conduct in-depth analysis of risks to security among the most vulnerable sectors and communities impacted by climate change across the globe, he said.

Noting that in recent years several groups have studied the link between climate and security, Pachauri said that these have raised the threat of dramatic population migration, conflict, and war over water and other resources as well as a realignment of power among nations. "Some also highlight the possibility of rising tensions between rich and poor nations, health problems caused particularly by water shortages, and crop failures as well as concerns over nuclear proliferation," he said.