A Nobel for the Inconvenient Truth

In 2006, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore presented the film-documentary on human-caused climate change or global warming An Inconvenient Truth. The film won worldwide acclaim and the 2006 Academy Awards for Documentary Feature and Best Original Song—Melissa Etheridge’s “I Need to Wake Up.”
On October 12, 2007, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “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”
The Nobel Committee cited the scientific reports the IPCC has issued over the past two decades that have led to an “ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.”
The IPCC was established in 1988, by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The IPCC assesses “on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”
As for Al Gore, the Nobel Committee noted that he has for a long time been one of the world’s leading environmentalist politicians. “He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.”
“By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control.” Speaking of action now, we then go back to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that was produced at the “Earth Summit” (UN Convention on Environment and Development) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This treaty, of which the Philippines is a State Party, was aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gas as a way of combating global warming.
However, this treaty set no mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. It did not also have any enforcement provisions. It was therefore considered as non-binding.
Instead, the treaty called for updates or “protocols” that would set the mandatory limits through the “Conference of the Parties” or “COP.” The principal update so far achieved was the Kyoto Protocol adopted in December 1997, in Kyoto, Japan. As of June 2007, a total of 172 countries have signed or ratified this protocol. Notable exceptions, however, include the United States and Australia.
With the Nobel Prize for Al Gore and the IPCC, climate change or global warming would again be at the forefront of international efforts, especially leading to the next COP in December this year in Bali, Indonesia.