WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. Mike Honda has led a group of 17 U.S. House of Representatives members who introduced a resolution recognizing Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations Panel, for their selection as 2007 Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

The proposed resolution, H.R. 735, came on the heels of an earlier announcement today by the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarding the Prize to Gore and the IPCC.

In the past few years, Gore and the IPCC have raised significantly the profile of global warming as an issue in all levels of society and across international borders. Gore’s vigorous work to highlight the issue was the focus of the Academy Award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” which used both Gore’s life experiences and a series of scientific studies and observations to crystallize the argument that global warming is real and already taking a toll on the planet.

“Vice President Gore and the IPCC have made keystone contributions to raise awareness and gather political will to tackle global warming,” said Honda, the resolution’s author. “They took a technical issue that used to be discussed in terms such as ‘Keeling curve’ and ‘Antarctic core samples’ and made it real for people and their leaders across the planet to understand.”

The IPCC has issued scientific reports over the past 20 years that have led to an increasingly informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over 100 countries have collaborated to demonstrate increasing evidence linking human activities and global warming’s consequences.

Some of these consequences include rising oceans, more frequent and intense tropical cyclones and prolonged droughts. From a geopolitical standpoint this leads to fiercer competition for resources and armed conflict. The United Nations’ Environment Program Report cites climate change among the key triggers in the civil war in Sudan’s Darfur region and the deaths of up to 450,000 women, men and children.

The Nobel Committee cited Al Gore as “probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted” in the struggle against climate change and its dramatic consequences.

“This prize is welcome news not just for Americans, but all global citizens,” said Honda. “Yes, it honors a group of people who have dedicated all their energy to a problem that affects every single being on this planet, but it is also evidence that the global community is listening and heeding the urgent call of Mr. Gore’s and the IPCC’s vital message.”

Honda is the author of the “Global Warming Education Act,” (H.R. 1728) which would educate Americans on global warming issues. This past May he convened the Congressional Forum on Climate Change, Energy, and the Americas; in September Honda was on the global warming panel at the Latin Economic Forum in New York City.

The resolution’s original co-sponsors are: Betty McCollum (D-MN); Darlene Hooley (D-OR); Sam Farr (D-CA); Howard Berman (D-CA); Barbara Lee (D-CA); Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); Steve Rothman (D-NJ); Hilda Solis (D-CA); Russ Carnahan (D-MO); Raul Grijalva (D-AZ); Rush Holt (D-NJ); Ed Markey (D-MA); Elijah Cummings (D-MD); Bart Gordon (D-TN); Linda Sanchez (D-CA); Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD); and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

For more information on Rep. Honda’s climate initiatives please log onto http://www.honda.house.gov/issues/environment.shtml