Prince William Announces £5 Million in Earthshot Prize Funding for Climate Solutions
Rio de Janeiro – Prince William revealed the five winners of the 2024 Earthshot Prize today, awarding each project £1 million to scale up innovative solutions addressing critical environmental challenges.
The awards ceremony, held Wednesday evening at Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Tomorrow, recognized initiatives ranging from financially viable Atlantic Forest protection in Brazil to a landmark global ocean treaty. Brazilian football legend Cafu, Olympic gymnast Rebeca Andrade, and former Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel presented awards, while performances by Kylie Minogue, Shawn Mendes, and Anitta added to the celebratory atmosphere. The Earthshot Prize, inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot program, aims to incentivize impactful environmental action and has garnered significant attention as a key platform for climate innovation.
“When I founded the Earthshot Prize in 2020, we had a 10-year goal: to make this the decade in which we transformed our world for the better,” Prince William told attendees. “We set out to tackle environmental issues head on and make real, lasting changes that would protect life on Earth.” This year’s winners include re.green (Protect and Restore Nature), the city of Bogotá (Clean Our Air), the High Seas Treaty (Revive Our Oceans), Lagos Fashion Week (Build a Waste-Free World), and Friendship (Fix Our Climate). The selection process involved nearly 2,500 nominees from 72 countries, narrowed down to 15 finalists. You can learn more about the five Earthshots and their goals on the official Earthshot Prize website.
Chair of the board of trustees, Christiana Figueres, emphasized the growing momentum of the initiative, stating, “These winners are proof that the spirit of collective action born here in Rio continues to grow stronger, more determined, and more urgent than ever.” Prince William will continue his focus on climate issues tomorrow with a speech at COP30, the UN’s annual climate change meeting in Belem, in the Amazon rainforest, building on his criticism yesterday of criminals involved in Amazon deforestation.
