As COP looms, Prince William awards debut Earthshot Prize

LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson Prince William will bestow his inaugural "Earthshot" environmental prize at a gala ceremony on Sunday, after a buildup marked by royal displeasure at world leaders’ inaction on climate change.

At the televised event -- featuring the renowned naturalist David Attenborough and performances by Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and others -- five international winners will each receive £1 million ($1.4 million, 1.2 million euros).

William hopes the event will help propel the fight against climate change leading up to the COP26 summit in Scotland, calling those on the shortlist "innovators, leaders and visionaries".

In a short film recorded for the ceremony in the London Eye and released ahead of the event on Sunday, William warns that the "actions we choose or choose not to take in the next 10 years will determine the fate of the planet for the next thousand."

"A decade doesn’t seem long, but humankind has an outstanding record of being able to solve the unsolvable," he says. "The future is ours to determine. And if we set our minds to it, nothing is impossible."

Those nominated include an Indian teenager who has designed a solar-powered ironing cart, and Costa Rica, which is pioneering a project to pay people to restore natural ecosystems.

A food waste hub in Milan, Italy, a coral replacement scheme in the Bahamas, and a clean-air app from China are also on the shortlist. Each of the finalists -- chosen by experts from more than 750 nominations -- will be given help from companies to develop their projects.

In a BBC interview this week, William took a potshot at wealthy space tourists, for neglecting problems closer to Earth, while his father and grandmother have also weighed in this week on climate change.

Opening the Welsh legislature in Cardiff on Thursday, the 95-year-old monarch was overheard upbraiding world leaders who "talk" but "don’t do" enough about the planetary crisis.

The queen complained that not enough leaders had confirmed their attendance at COP26, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi among the key players in doubt.

William’s father, long-time environmentalist Prince Charles, meanwhile told the BBC that he worried the leaders coming would "just talk", rather than implement "action on the ground".

Charles, whose Highgrove estate in western England has an entirely organic garden and farm, also outlined some of his own actions to reduce his carbon footprint, including cutting down on meat and fish.