The Prince of Wales has spoken out about both issues following his launch of the Terra Carta initiative which seeks to encourage environmental investment. He also linked climate change to the coronavirus pandemic, urging people need to “heal the natural world”.
The royal has spoken out about environmental issues a number of times in the past.
Speaking to CNN yesterday, Charles warned that people have become “more concerned” about climate change “the loss of biodiversity” amid the Covid-19 outbreak.
He added: “With both these threats and huge challenges, we are faced with an environmental threat.
“Planetary health and nature’s health is intimately linked to our own health.”
He also claimed vaccination “is critical to ensure we have a way out of this,” and claimed “this pandemic will not be the last one” unless humankind is “very careful”.
Charles also said he will “absolutely” get a vaccine for Covid-19 when it becomes available to him as part of the UK rollout.
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In it, he made an “urgent appeal” to leaders to support the scheme and “bring prosperity into harmony with nature, people and planet”.
He added, in French: “Today, reflecting on all that we have endured together, it is more clear than ever that human health and planetary health are fundamentally interconnected.
“Over the past year, through my Sustainable Markets Initiative, I have convened global leaders, as part of a ‘Coalition of the Willing’, from across industries and almost every sector of the economy, and challenged them to identify ways to set our planet on a fundamentally more sustainable trajectory.”
Already, some firms have signed up to support the Terra Carta project, including Bank of America, HSBC, and Heathrow Airport.
The project aims to gather funding with $10 billion by 2022, through what it has called a “Natural Capital Investors Alliance”.
Last year, Prince Charles called for a military-style “Marshall-like plan for nature, people and the planet”.
He made his comments in a video marking the launch of the week of virtual events to tackle climate change.
He added: “We must now put ourselves on a warlike footing, approaching our action from the perspective of a military-style campaign.”
