Al Gore said the Nobel Peace Prize he accepts Monday already has helped draw the world’s attention to global warming and he expressed optimism that growing public pressure would push governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

The former vice president shares the prize with the U.N.‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which will be represented at Monday’s award ceremony by its leader, Rajendra Pachauri.

A day before accepting the prize, Gore said reducing greenhouse gases was essential to fighting the “planetary emergency” of global warming. “That phrase may sound shrill to some ears but it is accurate,” he said.

“It is a question of the survival of our civilization,” Gore told reporters at the Nobel Institute in downtown Oslo. “CO2 increases anywhere are a threat to the future of civilization everywhere.”