'Next 10 years are critical’: Prince William backs £50m climate change project Earthshots

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - The Duke of Cambridge has launched a £50 million drive to find the creme de la creme of visionary climate change projects that can help save the planet.

Conservationist Sir David Attenborough provided an inspiration for the Earthshots Prize, a vision with a 10-year plan designed to see the planet cleaned up by 2030.

Only the best environmental ideas with the biggest wow factor will be considered for an Earthshot accolade, said Royal Foundation CEO Jason Knauf.

He said the Earthshots project is based on the theory that “urgency plus optimism equals action” and added that by taking pessimism out of the equation and working alongside those committed to science, the rising climate crisis might be alleviated.

It is hoped the winners will inspire “everyone from a schoolchild in Africa to a boardroom in Europe”, Mr Knauf said.

We are rapidly approaching a number of tipping points.

The awards are all the more prestigious thanks to the project’s royal backing. “The plan is to really galvanise and bring together the best minds, the best possible solutions, to fixing and tackling some of the world’s greatest environmental challenges,” said the Duke of Cambridge.

“We’ve got to harness our ingenuity and our ability to invent. The next 10 years are a critical decade for change. Time is of the essence, which is why we believe that this very ambitious global prize is the only way forward.”

The scheme is itself inspired by former US president JF Kennedy’s ‘moonshot’ vision in the 1960s, which resulted in the Americans putting men on the moon, thus winning the Cold War space race against the then-USSR.

The Earthshots will award £1 million to each of five projects for the next 10 years, making it the world’s most high-profile accolade for fighting climate change.

‘We are rapidly approaching a number of tipping points. If we don’t act now we may find that runaway climate change and the destruction of the natural world will simply become impossible to stop,” Mr Knauf said.

“This is not theory any more. We can see the fires burning, the ice caps melting. The most vulnerable people on the planet are already suffering from rising sea levels.

“Prince William identified a challenge – urgency is a key part to people demanding change but people feel pessimistic about our ability to solve complex challenges.”

He added: “With every prize we will demonstrate we have the answers… our power to innovate and co-operate can now save the planet for future generations. The Earthshot prize will speak to every corner of the earth.”

Organisers contacted representatives at Nobel and the X Prize Foundation to establish how winners would be chosen. One of the first people the Duke of Cambridge spoke to was Sir David Attenborough.

The best ideas will be adjudged by nominators from around the world across five categories: protect and restore nature, clean our air, revive our oceans, build a waste-free world, and fix our climate.

Earthshot’s founding partners are DP World alongside Dubai EXPO 2020, the Aga Khan Development Network, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Jack Ma Foundation, Marc and Lynne Benioff, and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Nominations will open on November 1, with the first winners – which could be individual, established companies or start-ups, or even a city - being named in December 2021.

Anyone who becomes a finalist will get the chance to scale up their project with Earthshot funding.

“We will provide a global platform, so that the people who have the solutions have the loudest voice in the room.” Mr Knauf added.