IQALUIT - Sheila Watt-Cloutier has received awards from former heads of state, been introduced by Academy Award winning actors, and may be the best known Inuk in Canada, but her latest honour may be the most prestigious of all.

Along with former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, Watt-Cloutier has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier joins Al Gore in Nobel nomination Former Nobel Peace Prize winners include: Jimmy Carter - 2002 Nelson Mandela - 1993 Mikhail Gorbachev - 1990 The Dalai Lama - 1989 Desmond Tutu - 1984 Lech Walesa - 1983 Mother Teresa - 1979 Henry Kissinger - 1973 Martin Luther King - 1964 Lester Pearson - 1957 Woodrow Wilson - 1919 Theodore Roosevelt - 1906 Source: Nobel Peace Centre

Climate change has received more attention than ever in the past year, and Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" has played a role in that.

Watt-Cloutier's work spreading the message about climate change combined with Gore's mass media appeal made them the ideal pair, according to the people who nominated them.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is a documentary exploring climate change, one of the pet projects of the former vice-president, and is nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2007 Academy Awards.

The two were nominated by Heidi Dorenson of the Norwegian Socialist Left Party and Conservative MP Boerge Brende. The nominators are political rivals, but are of the same mind when it comes to Gore and Watt-Cloutier.

"A prerequisite for winning the Nobel Prize is making a difference, and Al Gore has made a difference. Gore uses his position to get politicians to understand, while Sheila works from the ground up," said Brende to the Associated Press. While being nominated is an honour, winning would be a huge windfall, the Nobel Peace Prize is worth a cool $1.4 million.

The winner of the prize is usually announced in October, and the award ceremony is always on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

Win or lose, the nomination is bound to bring more attention to climate change and the warming of the Arctic.

Some newspapers that covered the nomination include The Chicago Tribune, The Khaleej Times of the United Arab Emirates, and The Dallas Morning News to name a few.

China's Beijing Chronicle calls the pair "possible winners," but they are facing a lot of competition.

Last year there were 191 nominees for the prize. Other nominees for 2007 include Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Do and Sail Training International, a British charity that teaches young people through sailing.