The Duke of Cambridge officially launched the Earthshot Prize yesterday, and detailed more on the environmental award. The initiative, billed as “the most prestigious global environment prize in history”, will give £50 million in prize money to climate change thinkers over the next 10 years to find new innovative solutions to environmental problems. This year will see five winners take home £1 million each after their proposals are judged by a scientific panel. Sir David Attenborough has already voiced his support for the Duke’s campaign, and also appeared in an interview with the royal discussing it.
Now, Mr Obama has taken to Twitter to show his support for the prize plan.
The former President shared a video announcing the campaign, and approved of William’s initiative.
He said: “It’s going to take a lot of big-thinking and innovation to save the one planet we’ve got.
“That’s why the Kensington Royal’s leadership on climate change can make a real difference.”
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Support also came in from former Democrat nominee for President Hillary Clinton.
She said of the campaign: “We don’t have any time to lose when it comes to protecting our planet for future generations.”
British star Bear Grylls also took to Twitter to praise the Duke’s prize campaign.
He added: “The most important initiative of all – because when we protect the environment we protect lives.”
It came after William and Sir David discussed the prize campaign in an interview for BBC Radio 4.
The Duke spoke of his hopes for the campaign, and said: “I felt very much that there’s a lot of people wanting to do many good things for the environment and what they need is a bit of a catalyst, a bit of hope, a bit of positivity that we can actually fix what’s being presented.
“And I think that urgency with optimism really creates action. And so the Earthshot Prize is really about harnessing that optimism and that urgency to find solutions to some of the world’s greatest environmental problems.
“We believe that this decade is one of the most crucial decades for the environment and by 2030 we really hope to have made huge strides in fixing some of the biggest problems the Earth faces.”
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William has previously said he was inspired to take on environmental causes because of his father Prince Charles.
At the launch of the prize, William said Charles was “ahead of his time” on taking an interest in environmental causes.
He said to BBC Radio 4: “He’s talked about this for a long time and long before people sort of cottoned on to climate change.
“So, I’ve always listened to and learnt and believed in what he was saying.
“But I knew it’s a very hard sell, you know, 40 years ago to kind of predict and see some of the sort of slow-moving catastrophes that we were headed towards.”
Yesterday also saw the campaign announce its panel of judges for the prize money.
Sir David and William represent the UK on the panel of scientific experts, and appear alongside actress Cate Blanchett, singer Shakira and Jordan’s Queen Rania Al Abdullah.
Experts and environmentalists such as Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief, and Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, economist and international development expert, will also appear on the star-studded panel.
Entries for nomination for the 2021 prize open on November 1, with a ceremony taking place in London in the autumn of that year.
