Nobel Laureates call on world leaders for robust climate change deal

The call comes in a Memorandum signed by Laureates from across the disciplines, including recent recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, Mikhail Gorbachev, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, John Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing.

The St. James’s Palace Memorandum, drawn up earlier this year at a Symposium held in London under the patronage of HRH The Prince of Wales, is being sent to international policy leaders in the run up to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

The Memorandum urges governments, scientists, the business community and civil society to seize the historic opportunity that Copenhagen represents to transform our carbon-intensive economies into sustainable and equitable systems.

Professor Sir Harold Kroto, one of the signatories and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, said: “The world now faces several massive challenges - all of which must be confronted with serious effort if we are to survive into the next century. The rainforest challenge is a key one that will require a coordinated response from all citizens on the planet.”

Nobel Laureate Dr. Hideke Shirakawa, Chemistry 2007, added: “I believe that not only scientists but also many ordinary people worry about climate change, but I am afraid that their view has not been articulated strongly enough because it is difficult to bring people together across the globe in order to express these concerns. I hope the St. James’s Palace Memorandum will be a strong voice which unites and affects international society.”