Charles starts web channel with call for ‘war footing’ on climate

THE Prince of Wales has launched his own “content platform”, as he turned editor-in-chief to share videos and stories online to tackle climate change.

The Prince has curated a series of films and articles on subjects close to his heart for RE: TV, an internet channel designed to “champion inspiring solutions from around the world”.

As he launched it yesterday, the Prince also delivered a speech at the opening of Climate Week, in which he argued that leaders must develop a “Marshall-like” plan to be on a “war footing” to save the planet. He said countries must work together “approaching our action from the perspective of a military-style campaign”, to “combat this most grave and urgent challenge”.

The new online platform will cover the same issues, with subchannels named Re: Imagine, Re: Energize, Re: Balance, Re: Invigorate and Re: Invest.

It currently has more than a dozen short films and articles, with more to be added weekly at re-tv.org.

A spokesman said “explainer films” will clarify what carbon capture, the “circular bioeconomy” and other processes and ideas are, while articles are being commissioned from various “thought-leaders in sustainability”. In an interview on the website, the Prince said: “We’ve so degraded natural systems, ecosystems, biodiversity, that it’s becoming increasingly impossible for nature to sustain us.

“At the moment it’s all take, take. Now we’ve reached the situation where we really need four planets like Earth to survive or provide enough for everybody.

And there is a better world out there. We can operate our industries far better.”

In a separate speech, he said the impact of the climate crisis would “dwarf ” the damage of coronavirus.

“At this late stage, I can see no other way forward but to call for a ‘Marshalllike plan for nature, people and planet’,” he said. “Without doubt we must now put ourselves on a war-like footing, approaching our action from the perspective of a military-style campaign.

“Billions of people around the world are waiting and longing for concerted action to right the balance of this planet that we have so rashly disrupted.

“It is their lives we are gambling with, as well as the ultimate survival of everything that tries to share this ailing Earth with us.”

He also called for global pledges to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 to be brought forward, as it “suggests we have room to delay”. It challenges the Government’s plan to cut emissions to net zero within 30 years.

‘We must put ourselves on a war-like footing [to take] action from the perspective of a military campaign’