Czech President Vaclav Klaus was surprised at the award because the relationship between Gore’s work and world peace was “unclear and indistinct”, his spokesman said.

It was the second Nobel peace prize for a leading U.S. Democrat during the presidency of Republican Bush, who rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol setting limits on industrial nations’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The 2002 prize went to former President Jimmy Carter, which the Nobel committee head at the time called a “kick in the legs” to the U.S. administration over preparations to invade Iraq.

Mjoes said the peace prize, the first to go to climate campaigners, was not meant as criticism of Bush.

Gore, 59, said he was deeply honoured and would donate his share of the prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

“This award is even more meaningful because I have the honour of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis,” he said.

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said he was overwhelmed and felt privileged to share the prize with Gore.

“This recognition...thrusts a new responsibility on our shoulders. We have to do more and we have many more miles to go,” Pachauri said in New Delhi.

The IPCC groups 2,500 researchers from more than 130 nations and issued reports this year blaming human activities for climate change ranging from more heat waves to floods. It was set up in 1988 by the United Nations to help guide governments.

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