Brian Lawless – WPA Pool/Getty ImagesBy KATIE KINDELAN and ZOE MAGEE, ABC News
(LONDON) — Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, has launched a new environmental prize described by Kensington Palace as the “most prestigious global environment prize in history.”
William’s Earthshot Prize is modeled after former U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s famous moonshot challenge that he launched in a speech before Congress in 1961.
While Kennedy’s challenge was to put U.S. astronauts on the moon by the end of the decade, William’s Earthshot Prize comes with the equally lofty goal of finding solutions to the biggest of Earth’s challenges.
The prize focuses on five Earthshots, or goals, to repair the planet by 2030, according to Kensington Palace.
Each year until 2030, Prince William and Earthshot Prize Council will award The Earthshot Prize to five winners, one per Earthshot, who will each receive $1 million, according to Kensington Palace.
The goal is to create “at least 50 solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems by 2030,” the palace said in a news release announcing details of William’s new initiative.
We have just 10 years to repair the planet. By 2030, let’s choose to:
🐢 Protect and restore nature
💨 Clean our air
🌊 Revive our oceans
♻️ Build a waste-free world
🌍 Fix our climateIntroducing the @EarthshotPrize 🏆 https://t.co/Ar41HpMIJp
— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) October 8, 2020
“The plan is to really galvanize and bring together the best minds, the best possible solutions, to fixing and tackling some of the world’s greatest environmental challenges,” William said in a film released to announce the members of the Earthshot Prize Council. “We’ve got to harness our ingenuity and our ability to invent.”
“The next 10 years are a critical decade for change,” he said. “Time is of the essence, which is why we believe that this very ambitious global prize is the only way forward.”
The @Earthshotprize council is a diverse, broad range of people from all around the world who I’ve been talking to over the last few weeks and months. We’ve got a really fantastic council together. pic.twitter.com/xnXkyuoxeZ
— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) October 8, 2020
The Earthshot Prize is a passion project for William, one which he has been developing for the past two years. William partnered on the prize with his Royal Foundation, the charitable organization run by William and Kate, which calls the prize its “biggest initiative to date.”
William, who has long championed environmental efforts, is the subject of a documentary released this week highlighting his conservation and environmental work.
William, the father of Prince George, 7, Princess Charlotte, 5, and Prince Louis, 2, spoke about how he wants to make the world a better place for future generations.
“My grandfather, my father, have been in the conservation, the environmental work for many years. My grandfather was well ahead of his time. My father was ahead of his time,” William said in Prince William: A Planet for Us All, referring to his father, Prince Charles, and grandfather Prince Philip. “And I really want to make sure that, in 20 years, George doesn’t turn around and say, ‘Are you ahead of your time?’ Because if he does, we’re too late.”
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