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 With the high-profile project,
William, the Queen's grandson who is
second-in-line to the throne, opened up a new
chapter in the royal family's decades-long
environmental campaigning.
The Earthshot Prize will award five
one-million-pound ($1.29-million) prizes each
year for the next 10 years under the categories
of protecting and restoring nature, cleaner air,
reviving oceans, waste-reduction and climate
change.
William has recruited a dozen global celebrities
to join the Earthshot Prize Council to decide
the winners.
As well as Brazilian footballer Alves and
Chinese entrepreneur Ma, they include British
naturalist David Attenborough, Queen Rania of
Jordan, Australian actor Cate Blanchett,
Colombian singer Shakira and former UN climate
chief Christiana Figueres.
William's grandfather, Queen Elizabeth's husband
Prince Philip, and his father Prince Charles
have both spoken for decades about the
importance of conservation and the impact of
climate change, years before such ideas became
mainstream.
William told BBC Radio it was now his
responsibility to take on that baton because the
world was at a tipping point and he owed it to
his children and grandchildren to leave the
world in a better condition.
While he had often wondered what his father was
"banging on about" he realised now it had been a
very hard sell "to predict and see some of the
slow-moving catastrophes that we were headed
towards".
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 "This is a generational
baton-handling, my grandfather started it, my
father has picked it up and really accelerated
that and I feel right now that it's my
responsibility, I really feel that we are at a
tipping point," he said.
Speaking alongside Attenborough, William said
change was critical in the next decade.
"By 2030 we really hope to have made huge
strides in fixing some of the biggest problems
the Earth faces," William, 38, said.
"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."
Nominations open on Nov. 1 ahead of the first
awards ceremony in the autumn next year.
Kensington Palace said the prize drew
inspiration from U.S. President John F.
Kennedy's Moonshot, which it said had been
synonymous with ambitious and ground-breaking
goals since the 1969 moon landing.
Further members of the Earthshot Prize Council
will be announced in the coming months.
(Reporting by Sarah Young, additional reporting
by James Davey and Kate Holton; Editing by Janet
Lawrence and Giles Elgood)
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