OSLO, Norway - Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday, and the former vice president used the attention to warn that global warming is "the greatest challenge we've ever faced."
World leaders, President Bush among them, congratulated the winners, while skeptics of man's contribution to warming criticized the choice of Gore.
Gore in a statement said he was " deeply honored ... We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."
"It is the most dangerous challenge we've ever faced, but it is also the greatest opportunity we have had to make changes," he later said at a brief news conference in Palo Alto, Calif.
Gore did not take any questions. As he walked away a reporter asked if he would run for president, but Gore did not respond.
Gore’s film "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary on global warming, won an Academy Award this year. He had been widely expected to win the peace prize.
