Al Gore is a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, writes Oisín Coghlan
If humanity fails to contain climate change it will be a major cause of conflict in the 21st century, as resources such as fresh water and arable land become scarcer and competition for them becomes more fierce. Climate change is already exacerbating the crisis in Darfur.
The Nobel committee got it right when they said of Al Gore that he was "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures which need to be adopted" to prevent climate change running out of control.
It is remarkable that, through some form of alchemy, a man often regarded as a dull politician took a complex subject and succeeded in making it the sexiest issue on the planet.
Many scientists and campaigners around the world have worked long and hard to sound the alarm about global warming, but nobody has had the impact Gore has managed in the 18 months since the release of his film An Inconvenient Truth.
Its impact is partly explained by his success at confounding expectations. Previously described as a wooden performer, he adeptly deploys self-deprecation and irony. Famously, he introduces himself by saying "Hi, I'm Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States." The most surprising thing about An Inconvenient Truth is not that humanity faces a planetary emergency, but how entertaining a movie it is.
Gore's success is also explained by the American love of the comeback. He likes to describe the climate crisis as both a danger and an opportunity.
It is hard to imagine a more profound career crisis than a two-term US vice-president missing out on the presidency by a handful of hanging chads in Florida and a vote of the supreme court. And yet, after a period of mourning, Gore reinvented himself as a global climate champion, taking his slide show on the road in 2002 and delivering it more than a thousand times before it was made into a movie.
Although President George W. Bush repudiated the Kyoto treaty which Gore had signed while vice-president, Gore's work has ensured that whoever succeeds Bush will bring the US back to the table to negotiate a successor to Kyoto. As Bush enters the twilight of a tattered presidency, Gore is adding a Nobel to his Oscar.
Gore's career points to both the limits of elected office and the power of popular mobilisation. Gore was a science buff and an environmental policy student long before he entered politics. Once elected, he held the first congressional hearings on global warming. One of the most telling comments he makes in the movie concerns his assumption that his peers in Congress would be galvanised into action by the science, just as he was, whereas in fact they remained indifferent. He concludes that unless an issue is on the tips of the tongues of voters it will not reach the top of the political agenda.
In large part his work since he left the White House in 2001 has been to help build a popular movement strong enough to persuade political leaders to rise to the greatest challenge humanity has faced. Tackling climate change needs the sort of collective action that only national governments and international agreements can achieve. It has taken a "failed politician" to bring that truth to the centre of global politics.
Friends of the Earth sent a DVD of An Inconvenient Truth to all 166 TDs returned to the 30th Dáil last June, as they have responsibility for overseeing Ireland's response to the climate crisis during the critical five-year period ahead, when big decisions will have to be made.
Gore will visit Ireland in early December, days before he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. There could be no greater signal that Ireland intends to do its fair share to prevent climate chaos than if the Nobel laureate was invited to address a joint session of the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Oisín Coghlan is director of Friends of the Earth