UN General Assembly pres lauds Gore, IPCC head Pachauri

United Nations, Oct 14 (UNI) The president of the UN General Assembly has congratulated former US Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) headed by Mr Rajendra Pachauri on their receipt of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and voiced hope that it would spur action on the issue of climate change.

''The president believes that the awarding of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize is a clear recognition of the fact that climate change is not just an environmental problem but a global, multifaceted challenge that deserves immediate and crucial attention from the international community,'' a spokesman for Srgjan Kerim, president of the General Assembly, said in a statement released yesterday in New York.

''The award is not only a recognition of the outstanding and important work that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been pursuing over many years, but also reflects positively on the work of the United Nations as a whole,'' he said, pointing out that climate change is the ''flagship issue'' of the current Assembly session.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize should ''give additional impetus to the efforts of member states to work through the United Nations to address the challenge of climate change,'' he said.

UNI