Peace and Climate change: Linked?

In his last and final will Alfred Nobel asked for the whole of his remaining estate to be constituted into a fund to be annually distributed in the form of prizes, five in all. Among them the peace prize was to be awarded to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

How then does awarding the Nobel Peace prize to Al Gore and the IPCC for their work on Climate change constitute an execution of Nobel's will as he deemed it? Many see it more as a political statement meant to rebuke President Bush, unable to see how the their work qualifies them for a Peace prize.

Here are two qoutes that seemed aimed to quell the dissent or at least afford an explaination.

Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief, Nobelprize.org
"In awarding the Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global body responsible for scientific assessment of climate change, and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore, the phenomenon's most renowned campaigner, the Norwegian Nobel Committee are highlighting the link they see between the risk of accelerating climate change and the risk of violent conflict and wars."

Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
"The fact that the Nobel Prize committee has awarded this prize to IPCC for peace is a clear recognition of [the fact] that if we allow things to run out of hand, it can lead to conflict. Where you have water scarcity, you obviously have conflict. Where you have floods and droughts, obviously there will be hardship and that can lead to conflict. If the sea level rises and people are displaced, they will overrun political boundaries and that will lead to conflict."

(The above quote is from an interview for Newsweek with Fareed Zackaria)

While the prize will and has helped raise concern and awareness for Global warming, a true planetary emergency, the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal carried an article "Not Noble Winners" that lists some candidates for the prize in 2008 that might be more of what Alfred Nobel had in mind.

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Also read previous post: Nobel Peace Prize not so warming for Mr. Bush

Nobel Peace Prize not so warming for Mr. Bush

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize for work on Climate Change and Global warming also has the resounding sound of a swipe at George Bush and his administration. Bush's government has been criticized for trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of Global warming and refusing to be a signatory to the Kyoto Agreement. Bush also failed to attend a world summit on the issue at the UN and instead held his own smaller gathering in Washington to advocate voluntary reductions in emissions.

US Ex-Vice President and Ex-Presidential Candidate Al Gore won the Noble Peace Price for his work on Global warming. The award was shared by the UN panel on Climate Change. The United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate is headed by India scientist Rajendra Pachauri.

Run Al Gore! Run!

Al Gore's Nobel win has re-energized the calls for a second run for the US Presidency. If he were to enter the fray the present Democratic contenders would find themselves woefully inexperienced and lacking credibility in comparison. Al Gore also won an Oscar for his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and an Emmy for his Cable Channel "Current TV". His presence in the race could also give the Democrats a wide support base and run the Republicans out of office.

US-backed Dr. Pachauri turns his back on the US!

The 67 year old Indian scientist has been the Chairman of the UN Panel since 2002 and was awarded the "Padma Bhushan" Award by India in 2001. He was born in Nainital, India and studied at La Martiniere Boy's College in Lucknow. He obtained a Master's degree and Ph.D.in Industrial Engineering followed by a Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University, USA.

Dr. Pachauri became the new Chairman under widely acknowledged controversial circumstances. Environmental group "Friends of the Earth" alleged the expulsion of the incumbent Chairman, Dr. Robert Watson, was due to lobbying by the U.S. government and American energy businesses. Exxon was the environmental group's main target for anger, following a revelation that in 2001 it urged the U.S. government to replace Dr. Watson. Dr Pachauri, the then director of the Tata Energy Research Institute in New Delhi and Vice Chairman of this UN Panel, was the US administration's favored candidate. .

Dr Pachauri defended his independence and in fact created waves in 2005 when he told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius that he personally believes that the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and called for immediate and "very deep" cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive". The Bush administration reacted sharply and negatively to his comments.

He is also in favor of the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the international treaty on climate change assigning mandatory emission limitations for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to the signatory nations. United States has not ratified the agreement and Bush is not in favor of doing so citing its possible negative effect on the US economy.


Congratulations to Dr. Pachauri and Mr. Gore!

Top 10 most polluted cities- The other list

Every year the World Bank releases its list of top 20 polluted cities of the world. The list is based on air pollutants and the big news was that 16 of China's cities were on that top 20 list for 2006. This year we were introduced to a new list of polluted cities with more relevant criteria. Unfortunately the list does not look kindly on India.

The Blacksmith group compiled a list of the 35 most polluted cities in the world for 2006 from among 300 cities that had been presented to it over the past seven years for support in clean up by local communities, non-government organizations (NGOs) and a broad range of environmental authorities around the world.

India made a strong showing with 6 of its cities making the short list. The Indian contingent included Ankleshwar; an industrial township in Gujarat, Bhopal; site of the Union Carbide Industrial disaster in Madhya Pradesh, Kanpur, on the shores of Ganges in Uttar Pradesh, Picnic Gardens; to the east of Kolkata in West Bengal, Ranipet; about 100 miles away from Chennai in Tamil Nadu and Vapi; an industrial estate in Gujarat. In the group's top 10 list as voted by its technical advisory board, Ranipet was India's only entry. The list was compiled based on a scoring system that gave varying weights and importance to criteria such as; the size of the affected population, severity of the toxin or toxins involved, impact of children's health and development, evidence of a clear pathway of contamination and existing and reliable evidence of health impact. Considering the variability in individual scoring and the difficulty in assessing the parameters accurately, the list does not ascribe any hierarchy stating that "being on the list is bad enough".

One of Blacksmith's goals in compiling the list was to garner worldwide media attention so as to spread the word of urgency in containing pollution considering it has to compete for space in all forms of media with various other environmental issues. The strategy seemed to work and got extensive media coverage around the world.

I do not have any data but do hope the cities on the list took notice and have instituted measures to take the appropriate measures. The description and pictures of how the pollution has affected the area are heartbreaking and shocking. Its unfortunate that we had at least six cities that merit such notoriety.