The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency greets the news of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore with great pride. Both have won this prize for their efforts in spreading awareness of human-induced climate change and creating a base on which to combat the effects of this change. The committee has indicated the potential grave consequences that the climate problem can have on the future (development) of our planet. According to the Nobel Prize committee climate changes may also pose a threat to conditions under which people live.

Al Gore underpinned his film “An Inconvenient Truth” with research from the scientific literature, not in the least contributed by the IPCC. This is a forum comprising a few hundred scientists who are commissioned by the UN to overview the current knowledge on the climate problem and possible solutions for coping with it. In doing so, they will be able to apply their knowledge in formulating wise climate policies.

In its last report, the IPCC concluded with an overwhelming measure of certainty that the most important cause of the observed temperature rise was the human being, but also that even though the effects of climate change are serious, the solutions are affordable.

The summary of this report will be published next month.

The MNP and IPCC

The secretariat of one of the three working groups of IPCC, Working Group III, explores potential measures for solving the climate change problem.  This group is housed at MNP. Two MNP senior scientists, Bert Metz, Co-chair of this working group, and Leo Meyer, who runs the secretariat, are senior scientists at MNP. Various MNP researchers have contributed to the IPCC reports. Further to this, approximately 25 Dutch scientists have been involved in the reports, either as authors or reviewers.

END OF PRESS RELEASE

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP) supports national and international policymakers by analysing the impacts of societal trends and policies on the environment. We provide independent integrated assessments on topics such as sustainable development, energy and climate change, biodiversity, transport, land use and air quality. The MNP acts as the interface between science and policy. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note to the editor:

Publication is available on www.mnp.nl/en. 

For more information, please contact: Anneke Oosterhuis, press officer MNP, 

+31.30.2743033

• to the website of IPCC Working Group III