Al Gore leads list of green campaigners for Peace Nobel

The winner, who will take $1.5 million in prize money, will be announced in the Norwegian capital on October 12 from a field of 181 nominees.

Gore, who has raised awareness with his book and Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, who has shed light on how global warming affects Arctic peoples, were nominated to share the prize by two Norwegian parliamentarians.

“I think they are likely winners this year,” said Stein Toennesson, director of Oslo’s International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) and a long-time Nobel Peace Prize watcher. “It will certainly be tempting to the (Nobel) committee to have two North Americans — one the activist that personifies the struggle against climate change, raising awareness, and the other who represents some of the victims of climate change.”

“There are already climate wars unfolding ... And the worst area for that is the Sahel belt in Africa.”

There has been a shift to reward work away from the realm of conventional peacemaking and human rights work.

In 2004, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai won for her campaign to get women to plant trees across Africa. Last year’s prize went to Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank for their efforts to lift millions out of poverty through a system of tiny loans.

Toennesson said others with a chance included former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, a perennial nominee for decades of peace mediation work, and dissident Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Do for his pro-democracy efforts.

His shortlist also includes Russian human rights lawyer Lidia Yusupova, who has fought for victims of war in Chechnya, and Rebiya Kadeer, an advocate for China’s Uighur minority.

The secretive five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee does not disclose the names of nominees, though some who make nominations go public with their candidates. Toennesson said by giving the award to those fighting climate change, the committee would thrust itself into the public debate ahead of a key UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December.