Al Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize on Monday and urged the United States and China to make the boldest moves on climate change or "stand accountable before history for their failure to act." (AP)

He shared the prize with Rajendra Pachauri, the U.N. climate panel's chief scientist.

"We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here," Gore said at the gala ceremony in Oslo's city hall, in front of Norway's royalty, leaders and invited guests. Gore urged China and the U.S. - the world's biggest carbon emitters - to "make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act."

Gore drew a parallel between leaders who ignore the climate crisis and those who didn't act as Nazi Germany rearmed before World War II.

"Too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: 'They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent' ", Gore said.
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