Czech president Vaclav Klaus: "surprised" at Nobel prize for Gore

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Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a rare vocal global- warming sceptic among heads of state, is "somewhat surprised" that former US vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize, the president's spokesman Petr Hajek said in a statement.

"The relationship between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct," the statement said. "It rather seems that Gore's doubting of basic cornerstones of the current civilization does not contribute to peace."

Klaus said in a recent speech that environmentalists' efforts to halt global warming "fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity."

The Czech president publicly expresses doubt on what scientists, including those participating in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, deem very likely - that global warming is caused by humans.

He also said that rising temperatures may not matter enough for governments to throw funds at halting the process.

In a newspaper interview earlier this year, Klaus said that only Al Gore, and not a sane person, would say that mankind is ruining the planet.

The Czech president has also recently participated in Gore-bashing newspaper advertisements ran by The Heartland Institute, a conservative US think tank. dpa kza ds