Prince William and Sir David Attenborough have teamed up to launch the Earthshot Prize, a new global environmental award ‘designed to incentivise change and help repair our planet over the next ten years’.
The Prize is inspired by American President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot project, which in the 1960s united and inspired millions of people around the goal of putting a human being on the moon by the end of the decade. In the pursuit of this goal several important technological innovations, such as CAT scanners and X-ray machines, were developed.
This award will be the biggest environmental prize ever, with £50-million being bestowed to deserving ideas over the next decade.
The Earthshot Prize will award five £1-million prizes each year for the next 10 years, in the hope of providing at least 50 solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems by 2030.
“The Earth is at a tipping point and we face a stark choice: either we continue as we are and irreparably damage our planet, or we remember our unique power as human beings and our continual ability to lead, innovate and problem solve,” says Prince William in a statement on the Prize’s website.
‘People can achieve great things,’ he continued. ‘The next ten years present us with one of our greatest tests – a decade of action to repair the Earth.’
Protecting and restoring nature, cleaning our air, reviving our oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing our climate will be the goals of the first five Earthshots. The best and most innovative ideas about how to address these issues will be awarded.
‘The need for action has never been more urgent,’ said Sir David Attenborough to the BBC. ‘Suddenly we actually see the writing is on the wall.’
The 94-year-old Attenborough said that by incentivising the Earthshot Prize the aim is that it will fortify ideas and give them ‘that strength, that financial impetus to spread and be developed’.
Nominations will be open to the public from November, 1. The award ceremony will be held in a different city every year.
The inaugural edition will take place in London in Autumn 2021 and Prince William will be apart of the decision-making panel.
The prize is funded by the philanthropic bodies of billionaires like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Michael Bloomberg, according to the Associated Press.
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