Prince William has recorded his first TED talk, an 18-minute speech—recorded at Windsor Castle— discussing climate change and his vision of the Earthshot Prize, the ambitious initiative he announced yesterday. The TED Talk will air on Saturday as part of the Countdown Global Launch, the first-ever free TED conference that will be available on YouTube.
The Duke joins a number of high profile people for the event devoted to climate change, including Pope Francis, Al Gore, Chris Hemsworth, Jaden Smith, Jane Fonda, Christiana Figueres, and Don Cheadle.. In the preview clip William says, “The shared goals for our generation are clear — together we must protect and restore nature, clean our air, revive our oceans, build a waste-free world and fix our climate. And we must strive to do all of this in a decade. If we achieve these goals, by 2030 our lives won’t be worse and we won’t have to sacrifice everything we enjoy. Instead, the way we live will be healthier, cleaner, smarter and better for all of us.”
38-year-old William has already publicly spoken about how this is the decade to reverse some of the damage done to the earth before it is too late. The future King was keen to do the prestigious TED talk to conclude a week that has been dedicated to his environmental efforts. On Monday ITV aired a new documentary Prince William: A Planet for Us All, in which the royal said how fatherhood had ‘changed his outlook’ on the issue of climate change and spurred him into taking direct action to save endangered species and tackle the environmental crisis. Then on Thursday William launched the Earthshot Prize, a project two years in the making, alongside Sir David Attenborough, who recently visited with William and his entire family.
Sources close to the future king, who came up with the idea to grant five £10m prizes annually to those who can come up with workable solutions to save the planet, say he wants the Earthshot Prize to be his legacy.
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