On Thursday, followers of Prince William and Kate Middleton might have been surprised to see a personal message from the prince in his Instagram stories. “Taking questions on the Earthshot Prize tomorrow. W,” it read, with a finger emoji pointing towards the question box. In a video shot in his Kensington Palace office Friday morning, the prince later donned a bright blue sweater and discussed his hopes for the Earthshot Prize, the £1 million award for activists addressing climate change he helped establish last year.
The inaugural prize will be awarded on Sunday during a live-streamed ceremony, but in his Instagram session, William said he already knew who the winner will be. He also said that he hoped the prize could promote optimism about the environment, something that it has already given him. “I think Earthshot has given me a lot of hope,” he said. “In putting all this together over the last 18 months, going around and seeing everyone and meeting everyone and seeing all the solutions, I do feel really hopeful that we can turn the tide. We can fix stuff.”
He also explained his motivations for starting the prize in the first place and why its 10-year window is meaningful. “The most important thing about the prize is that the time is absolutely crucial. We are on a ticking clock unfortunately and the next 10 years are critical,” he said. “We reach a threshold point where it’s irreversible to bring us back to what we currently have and better.”
Unsurprisingly, there were a few irreverent questions mixed in, like one reading “Come to Brazil.” William was game and answered in the affirmative. “I’d love to come to Brazil. I’ve been longing to come down there for years,” he said. “It gives me a good excuse now to pop in and see Dani Alves, my fellow prize council who’s been doing a fantastic job.”
When asked if unicorns are real, he gave a nuanced answer meant to please his daughter, Princess Charlotte. “Well, I think if you talked to my daughter, she’d say they were real,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a trade secret so I can’t possibly comment.”
Like any budding influencer, William also used his Instagram to promote his recent appearance on the BBC Newscast podcast.
In the interview with Adam Fleming, he slammed the ongoing billionaire space race and shared a bit more about his children’s feelings about the environment, mentioning a recent clean-up project Prince George did at school.
“[He was] a bit sort of annoyed by the fact they went out litter picking one day and then the very next day, they did the same route, same time and pretty much all the same litter they picked up was back again,” he said. “And I think that for him he was trying to understand how and where it all came from. He couldn’t understand, he’s like, ‘Well, we cleaned this. Why has it not gone away?’”
He added that his older son is already quite concerned about the threats posed by climate change. “He is acutely aware, more so than the other two at the moment,” he told BBC Newscast. “Charlotte is still a little bit young. She’s still not quite sure. And actually, Louis just enjoys playing outside the whole time. He lives outside.”
William also applauded the work his father, Prince Charles, has done on the subject of climate change. “You know, he’s been proven to be well ahead of the curve. Well beyond his time in warning about some of these dangers,” he said, adding that he hopes the next generation won’t have to take on the same work. “For me, it would be an absolute disaster if George is sat here talking to you or your successor, Adam, you know in like 30 years’ time, whatever, still saying the same thing, because by then we will be too late.”
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