Gore tipped for Nobel Peace Prize

Climate change campaigner Al Gore is favourite to win the Nobel Peace Prize announced tomorrow.

The former US Vice President, whose film 'An Inconvenient Truth' was criticised by a British judge yesterday for being riddled with scientific errors, was nominated by two Norwegian politicians.

Other tips are Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier by and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its leader Rajendra Pachauri.

Also included in speculation are Finnish peace mediator Matti Ahtisaari, Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Do, Irena Sendler for having saved Jewish children in Poland during World War II, and activists like Rebiya Kadeer from China and Lida Yusupova from Russia.

The five-member Norwegian awards committee works in deep secret, releasing only the number of candidates, 181 for this year's prize. It keeps their names secret for 50 years, and refuses to release any short-list or give any hints ahead of the prize, first awarded in 1901. Many winners come as a surprise.

"We stake our pride on keeping it secret," said Geir Lundestad, the committee's nonvoting secretary.

This year, climate change is at the top of the world agenda.

The UN climate panel has been releasing its reports, talks on a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate are set to resume, and on Europe's northern fringe, where the awards committee works, concern about the melting Arctic has been underscored by this being the International Polar Year.

The committee often uses the coveted prize to highlight a person or cause.

In recent years, the Norwegian committee has broadened its interpretation of peacemaking and disarmament efforts outlined by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in creating the prize with his 1895 will.

It now often also recognises human rights, democracy, elimination of poverty, sharing resources and the environment.