The glory of winning the Nobel peace prize will not propel Al Gore into a challenge for the US presidency, he said today.

The former vice-President had been urged to mount a late bid for the Democratic nomination but, asked if the prestigious award might tempt him to re-enter politics, Mr Gore said: “I don’t have plans to be a candidate again, so I don’t really see it in that context at all.”

Mr Gore was awarded the Nobel prize last week for his efforts to raise public awareness about the dangers of climate change and he insisted that movement would take priority over the race for President.

“I’m involved in another kind of campaign. It’s a global campaign to change the way people think about the climate crisis,” he told NRK, a Norwegian broadcaster.

Speculation has intensified that Mr Gore, who was narrowly beaten to the White House in the 2000 election, would use the publicity surrounding the prestigious Nobel award to launch a second bid for the presidency.

The Draft Gore organisation, which is urging him to stand against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, said they had received a surge of support for the 59-year-old since the Nobel prize announcement. The group claimed that 200,000 people had now signed a petition backing his candidature.

However, despite the group's claims, one poll suggests the US public is less than convinced. In similar findings to an opinion poll conducted in March, 54 per cent said he should not stand again, according to Gallup.

Political analysts have also suggested that Mrs Clinton has now built an unassailable lead in terms of both funding and support within the Democrat Party, even if she is still seen as a divisive candidate in many of the American states.

After Mr Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush by the smallest of margins, he spent five weeks trying to get a hand recount of disputed votes Florida before bowing to a Supreme Court decision in the current President’s favour.

Since then, he has reinvented himself as a climate campaigner. His film on the threat of climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, was awarded an Oscar and an Emmy.

His Nobel peace prize was awarded jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a UN body of about 3,000 experts which has highlighted the human role in rising global temperatures.

Mr Gore welcomed the prize, saying he would continue to campaign for action against climate change.

“It’s impossible to put it into words, it’s such a great honour,” he said.

“For me personally it means the chance to be more effective in trying to deliver this message about the climate crisis and the urgency of solving the climate crisis.”

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