… as THE DUKE reveals details of his Earthshot campaign’s first star-studded award ceremony
PROUDLY UNVEILS THE FIRST EARTHSHOT FINALISTS
Hailing
them for leading “the greatest endeavour of our time”, the Duke of Cambridge unveiled the first 15 finalists for his pioneering Earthshot Prize last week – and had his own children’s future on his mind.
“The Prince said: ‘What am I going to do in the next decade that means I can look my children in the eye and say that I did my bit?’ Every aspect of the prize bears the stamp of his contribution,” said Jason Knauf, chief executive of the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, of how Prince William created the £50m global competition.
“The challenge the Duke set himself was: ‘ What is the maximum positive personal contribution I can make in the next ten years in the fight against climate change?’” added Jason.
Announcing the finalists on YouTube last week, Prince William said: “They are working with the urgency required in this decisive decade for life on Earth, and will inspire all of us with their optimism in our ability to rise to the greatest challenges in human history.”
CREATING SOLUTIONS
The 15 finalists were chosen from 750 nominees across the globe for their innovative solutions to some of the planet’s greatest problems.
They have been selected by an expert advisory panel and the Earthshot Global Prize Council, whose members include naturalist Sir David Attenborough, Queen Rania of Jordan, singer Shakira, actress Cate Blanchett, football star Daniel Alves and Christiana Figueres, architect of the Paris climate agreement.
Those chosen include 14-year-old Vinisha Umashankar, whose solar- powered ironing street cart tackles air pollution and poverty across India, the city of Milan for its efforts to eliminate food waste, and the nation of Costa Rica for its scheme to pay citizens to restore natural ecosystems and save the rainforest.
Five winners will each receive £1m to support
their projects, with one chosen from each of the five Earthshot categories, which are: protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate.
The winners will be honoured in a starstudded international TV event, broadcast live from Alexandra Palace in London on 17 October. Ahead of the ceremony, Prince William, Sir David, Shakira and Daniel will also appear in a five-part documentary series on the BBC and Discovery.
The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet will introduce the finalists and highlight the action that needs to be taken to save the Earth. The prize will be awarded to winners in five categories each year until 2030, making this the Duke’s most ambitious project to date and one that will define his career, like his father’s Prince’s Trust or his grandfather’s Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.
AN OPTIMISTIC VIEW
The Duke has also written the foreword for the official Earthshot book, in which he says he says he wanted to tackle pessimism about the planet’s future, believing there was “a real risk that people would switch off, that they would feel so despondent, so fearful and so powerless”.
In an introduction to Earthshot: How to Save Our Planet, he writes: “I started thinking about what to do to change the equation to something else: urgency + optimism = action. The most famous example of using optimism to rise to a great challenge is the Moonshot…”
William explains that he wants to recapture the “human ingenuity, purpose and optimism” associated with US President John F Kennedy’s “Moonshot” challenge in the 1960s, which resulted in the Apollo Moon landings.
For more information on the project, visit earthshotprize.org.
Duke’s most
ambitious project to date and one that will defifine his career