Al Gore won a Nobel Prize in 2007 for his environmental work
The former US vice president, Al Gore, is backing the creation of a new green .eco domain name.

Dot Eco applied to create the domain which would then be used to host sites supporting environmental causes.

"This is a truly exciting opportunity for the environmental movement and for the internet as a whole," said Mr Gore.

Dot Eco plans to apply to ICANN - the regulatory body that oversees domain names - for the creation of .eco later in 2009.

Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his campaign on climate change and an Oscar for his film An Inconvenient Truth - a documentary about global warming - is the co-founder and chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Dot Eco said it had entered into an "integrated partnership" with Gore's group to secure the .eco domain.

"We fully support Dot Eco in its efforts to secure the .eco top level domain through the ICANN application and look forward to working with them to promote .eco," said Mr Gore.

The firm said proceeds from the registration would be used to fund research on climate change and other environmental issues.