Gore in Norway to get Nobel Peace Prize Fri Dec 7, 6:47 AM ET
OSLO, Norway - Former Vice President Al Gore arrived in Oslo on Friday to accept the Nobel Peace Prize he shared for the campaign against global warming, and shunned the traditional airport motorcade in favor of climate-friendly public transport.
Gore will accept the prize he shared with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital on Monday. Upon arriving in Oslo, Gore urged governments meeting at a climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, "to promptly produce a strong mandate."
He said he hoped they would move forward by two years the date for a successor to the Kyoto treaty, "so we don't have to wait until 2012," when Kyoto expires, to have a tougher agreement in place to reduce the emissions blamed for warming.
The governments meeting in Bali hope to finish drafting a new climate treaty by 2009, and have it ratified by 2012.
Before his arrival with his wife Tipper, Gore informed his hosts that he would not need the traditional motorcade from the airport, preferring to take the high-speed and environmentally friendly airport train and then walking to his downtown Oslo hotel.
"I use public transport when I can. It isn't always possible," Gore told The Associated Press while walking up Oslo's main street to his hotel. He said the train was much faster than a limousine, but that it was also a symbol of efforts to reduce pollution in hopes of slowing climate change.
"It is a gesture. It is also one of the changes we are all going to have to be doing anyway," Gore said.
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