The Prince of Wales rolled out a six-step “Marshall-like plan” aimed at putting the world on better footing to fight global warming. Prince Charles has warned that the unfolding climate emergency will soon dwarf the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. On Thursday, he laid out his proposal for addressing the crisis. First, he urged national leaders and businesses to embrace carbon pricing and end “perverse” fossil fuel subsidies. He also called for the scale-up of carbon capture and storage technology, the expansion of a global carbon offset market and the creation of an ecosystems services market which would put a higher value on preserving nature. Lastly, he advocated for sustainable urban development that protects the environment.
“As momentum and ambition builds, we need to narrow in on the solutions and start working towards real-world implementation,” he said during the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit on Thursday. Prince Charles has long championed environmental issues, occasionally drawing fire from critics who say members of the royal family should stay clear of policy matters. He’s pushed for a carbon tax and has personally lobbied U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama about global warming.
The plan would largely be carried out by another initiative he launched earlier this year with WEF — the Sustainable Market Initiative, a 10-point plan to accelerate the shift to eco-friendly markets. That effort created a Sustainable Markets Council bringing together leaders from government and industry who would be key to implementing the steps of Prince Charles’ so-called Marshall Plan, a nod to the U.S. program that helped rebuild Western Europe after World War II. The Prince, who contracted the coronavirus in March, has also launched a web platform for short films focused on climate change solutions. Called RE:TV, the channel is being curated by Prince Charles.
The web platform comes as an online battle rages to stop the spread of misinformation on everything from the coronavirus to climate change. Earlier this month, Facebook launched a “climate science information center” that seeks to stop the spread of misleading posts on social media that reject established facts.
Brian Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America Corp., which sponsors Re:TV, said the new web platform would play a democratizing role by helping people better understand the solutions available to tackling climate change.