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President Obama Must Earn Nobel Peace Prize
President Obama Must Earn Nobel Peace Prize With Strong Climate Action In Copenhagen
Oslo, 10 December 2009 - Greenpeace today congratulated US President Barack Obama on winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and urged him to use the award's prestige to help secure an ambitious, fair, and legally binding treaty at the UN Climate Summit when he travels to Copenhagen next week.
"The impact climate change will have on resource availability and human migration looms as one of the biggest threats to peace around the world. We urge President Obama to act in the spirit of this most prestigious award and move boldly to stop catastrophic climate change. He has been given this award partly for his stance on climate - but now he has to come to Copenhagen and earn it," said Kumi Naidoo, the Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
Across Oslo, from the airport to city hall and on board the Rainbow Warrior moored in the harbour, Greenpeace is sending a message to the president calling for stronger climate leadership, with banners, placards and posters saying: "YOU WON IT, NOW EARN IT".
In his acceptance speech Obama said that action to save the climate was essential to promote peace, disappointingly the President focused most of his comments on the justifications for war, only allocating one paragraph to the challenges of climate change. He closed by calling on people to "reach for the world that ought to be." Next week in Copenhagen he has a chance to realize the aspirations of these words.
To date, the US has only agreed to a provisional goal of cutting greenhouse pollution by 4 percent below 1990 levels. This offer falls dangerously short of the necessary 25-40 percent cut identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of scientists who won the Noble Prize for their work on the issue in 2007.
"We have the technology, the money, and the moral imperative to do this. All we lack is the political will. President Obama ran for office with the slogan 'Yes We Can'. We can and we must, Mr. President. Now is the time for action."
ENDS
Greenpeace
Greenpeace exists because this fragile earth deserves a voice.
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace.
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