Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Charles: We’re on thin ice
Prince urges climate action as frozen sea routes melt
PRINCE Charles has called for urgent action on climate change after seeing the destruction caused to a vital ice road linking remote communities in Canada.
Charles, 73, heard how indigenous communities are losing their livelihoods and being forced to flee their homelands on the front line of increasing environmental disasters brought on by global warming.
Melting ice in the remote Northwest Territories is causing frequent flash floods and destroying sacred lands.
The Dettah Ice Road, which connects the remote community of Dettah with the city of Yellowknife, is hit by unprecedented levels of warming,
While it used to open from December to March, in recent years it has been opening weeks later and closing up to a month early. It was open for 140 days in 1995 and 1996, but just 91 days in 2017 and 2019.
On the last day of his three day tour the prince said: “What I have heard and witnessed at first hand of the devastating impact of climate change here convinces me of the supremely urgent need to take decisive, bold action on behalf of future generations, and of nature.”
He added: “We simply must learn practical lessons from traditional knowledge, through deep connections to land and water, about how we should treat our planet.”
Charles also acknowledged the suffering of thousands of indigenous children abused or murdered from the late 19th century until the 1970s in residential schools run by the Anglican Church in Canada.
The remains of more than 200 children were last year found in unmarked graves at schools in British Columbia.
Charles, who visited a “heart garden” in memory of them with wife Camilla on their first day in Canada, said: “I want to acknowledge their suffering... our hearts go out to them and their families.”
It came after the Queen this week faced intensifying calls to formally apologise, in her role as head of the Anglican church.