Prince William’s South Africa visit to focus on climate

[Pelican Press 0]

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Prince William’s South ******* visit to focus on climate

Prince William will speak with young environmentalists and local fishermen during a visit to South ******* starting on Monday that will see his annual Earthshot Prize award $US1.2 million ($A1.8 million) in grants to five organisations for innovative environmental ideas.

The 42-year-old heir to the British throne will also attend a global wildlife summit and spend time at a sea rescue institute during his four days in Cape Town, with the centrepiece of his trip the Earthshot awards ceremony on Wednesday night.

He’ll use the visit to highlight other issues close to his heart, like the work of rangers on the frontline of conservation efforts, officials said.

William, the Prince of Wales, last visited ******* in 2018, but he has a strong connection to the continent. William travelled to ******* as a boy after the ****** of his mother, Princess Diana, in a Paris car ****** in 1997. He and his wife, Kate, got engaged at a wildlife conservancy in Kenya in 2010. And he said he came up with the idea for the Earthshot awards while in Namibia in 2018.

“******* has always held a special place in my heart as somewhere I found comfort as a teenager, where I proposed to my wife, and most recently as the founding inspiration behind the Earthshot Prize,” William said in a statement ahead of his visit.

Kate, Princess of Wales, and their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are not travelling to South *******. Kate, 42, only recently returned to some public duties after completing treatment for an undisclosed type of *******.

William’s trip follows soon after his brother Harry, the Duke of Sussex, visited South ******* and neighbouring Lesotho last month for a youth charity he set up with a member of Lesotho’s royal family.

William formed the Earthshot Prize through his Royal Foundation in 2020 to encourage new ideas to solve environmental problems and it launched in 2021. The first three awards ceremonies were held in Britain, the US and Singapore.

The prince said he wanted this year’s awards to inspire young people involved in climate action across *******, a continent of some 1.5 billion people that contributes the least to global warming but is especially vulnerable to climatic shocks.

The wider southern ******** region is currently experiencing its worst drought and hunger crisis in decades, with 27 million people severely affected, according to the ******* Nations.

The Earthshot prizes are awarded in five categories: protecting and restoring nature, clean air, reviving oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing the climate. This year’s finalists include a company in Kenya that develops solar-powered systems for homes, a group in Ecuador that brings Indigenous communities together to protect forests, and a conservation project in Kazakhstan that is saving the critically endangered Saiga antelope from extinction.

The awards ceremony will be held in a temporary, reusable dome that has been erected on a field next to a sports stadium in Cape Town.

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