DELIVERING a speech to world leaders in Rome ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Prince Charles did not mince his words on the state of the climate crisis.
The heir to the throne said the summit was “quite literally the last chance saloon”.
While acknowledging that progress had been made to reduce global emission, he stressed that there is still a long road ahead.
He said: "We have to reduce emissions urgently and take action to tackle the carbon already in the atmosphere".
Putting a value on carbon to incentivise carbon capture solutions is "absolutely critical", the prince said, while also noting that our "efforts cannot be a series of independent initiatives running parallel”.
Commenting on how to give developing countries a helping hand with the costly conversion to renewables, he said we "need a vast military style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector".
He added: "the cost of inaction is far greater than cost of prevention" and urges world leaders to find practical ways of overcoming differences so that "we can all get down to work together to save this precious planet".
The prince also met Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who later posted on Instagram:
"The Prince of Wales has been involved in fighting climate change and protecting our beautiful world for five decades - far longer than most.
"We had a chance to discuss these important issues on the eve of #COP26 - looking for solutions to heal our world, and how the BezosEarthFund can help."
Prince Charles has long been an environmental enthusiast and has dabbled in unorthodox methods to give nature a helping hand – including his recommendation of talking to plants to help them grow.
See More: COP26, Climate Change, Jeff Bezos, Prince Charles
