King Charles, as Prince of Wales in 2021, urged leaders to get on a “war footing” to help the environment when he spoke at the UN meeting in Glasgow.
“With a growing global population creating increasing demand on the planet’s finite resources, we urgently need to reduce emissions and take action to address the carbon already in the atmosphere, including that from coal-fired power plants,” Charles said at the time.
This year, Prince William is flexing his star power to try to galvanize world leaders into action.
“By hosting the award in Brazil, we are shedding light on the solutions emerging from this part of the world and drawing global attention to the urgency and opportunity of climate action.” he said Hello! magazine.
The comments highlight how the royal family can use their “traction” in the mainstream media to ensure their message reaches millions of people, i.e. voters. Hello! published the prince’s comments on its cover as part of a special “green” issue this week.
“As a father, I constantly think about the world my children will inherit,” he told the magazine.
Prince William meets Generation Earthshot participants on the first day of his visit to Brazil for the annual Earthshot Prize presentation.Credit: fake images
“I want them to grow up surrounded by nature, opportunity and a sense of hope about the future. But I also know that unless we act boldly now, that future is at risk.”
Arriving in Brazil ahead of the event, William met with participants in the Generation Earthshot program, which invites students and their teachers to discover solutions to help repair the planet, and took time to play beach volleyball and soccer with local children.
The Earthshot Prize is a nonprofit that organizes annual awards, rather than a policy advocacy group, but it has deep-pocketed donors and directors with real influence.
Prince William and Princess Catherine set it up five years ago as a branch of their Royal Foundation, which supports causes such as child development, mental health and conservation.
William speaks to Cate Blanchett at the Bafta Film Awards last year.
Credit: fake images
The £50 million ($100 million) in support for Earthshot came from more than 20 companies and foundations including the Aga Khan Development Network, Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, DP World, Jack Ma Foundation, Mastercard, Standard Chartered Bank, Temasek Trust and Uber.
The trustees are chaired by Christiana Figueres, formerly executive secretary of the UN agency that holds the annual climate summit. Ardern is a trustee, along with global business chiefs and political leaders.
Attenborough, Blanchett and Bundchen sit on the awards board that decides the awards. Other members include Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization.
Charging
Behind it all is Jason Knauf, who worked in the royal household for almost five years before heading the Royal Foundation for William and Catherine and then becoming CEO of Earthshot.
Knauf was educated in New Zealand and began his career as an adviser to Helen Clark when she was the country’s prime minister.
The 15 finalists for this year’s award include projects designed to prevent deforestation, find new ways to store renewable energy in batteries and minimize electronic waste.
One of the finalists is from Australia: the Quay Quarter tower in Sydney, also known as the new AMP tower, which retained 65 percent of the original tower and therefore avoided more than 12,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.
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