Prince Charles and David Cameron call for climate action in Paris

Prince Charles and UK Prime Minister David Cameron are in Paris with world leaders at the COP21 climate change conference. A total of 150 global leaders are looking for an agreement […]

Prince Charles and UK Prime Minister David Cameron are in Paris with world leaders at the COP21 climate change conference.

A total of 150 global leaders are looking for an agreement to limit temperatures below 2°C.

In a speech yesterday, Mr Cameron said “instead of making excuses tomorrow to our children and grandchildren, we should be taking action against climate change today”.

He called for a legally binding target with a five-year review to see how nations are working towards talking climate change and to help “the poorest and most vulnerable countries”.

“A deal that transfers technology from the richest countries to the poorest countries”, he added.

Prince Charles said his hopes are to achieve an agreement which “will decide the fate not only of those alive today, but also of generations yet unborn”.

The Prince of Wales highlighted the world has the “knowledge, the tools and the money” required to “put us on the right low carbon path for 2030”.

He said: “We lack only the will and the framework to use them wisely, consistently and at the required global scale. Governments collectively spend more than a trillion dollars every year on subsidies to energy, agriculture and fisheries. Just imagine what could be done if those vast sums supported sustainable energy, farming and fishing, rather than fossil fuels, deforestation and over-exploitation of the seas.

“We are always hearing nowadays that all our actions must be based on ‘good science’. We have that science. Why, then, when it comes to climate change is this apparently no longer applicable?

“We have also seen how fast innovation and investment can drive low carbon energy technologies and we are learning how to develop circular economies, in which everything we previously regarded as waste becomes the feedstock for future growth.”

Prince Charles believes “no threat is greater than climate change” as it “magnifies every hazard and tension of our existence”.

Last week, he proposed a new initiative to ensure small-scale environmental projects receive financing.

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