Global warming is the greatest threat that humanity faces and world leaders meeting in Paris for climate talks on Monday must act now, Prince Charles has told delegates from 195 countries meeting in the French capital.
“On an increasingly crowded planet, humanity faces many threats, but none is greater than climate change. It magnifies every hazard and tension of our existence,” the Prince of Wales told the summit, as he opened it along with the UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres and French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius.
“It threatens our ability to feed ourselves, to remain healthy, and safe from extreme weather, to manage the natural resources that support our economies, and to avert the humanitarian disaster of mass migration and increasing conflict.”
He echoed comments by Figueres, saying: “rarely in human history, as the executive secretary has just said, have so many people placed their trust in the hands of so few. Your deliberations over the next two weeks will decide the fate not only of those alive today but also of generations as yet unborn,” he told delegates.
Urging negotiators to end fossil fuel subsidies and spend the money on sustainable energy instead, he said: “We must act now. Already we are being overtaken by other events and crises that can be seen as greater and more immediate threats. But in reality many are already, and will increasingly be, related to the growing affects of climate change.”
The Prince, who also spoke at the landmark Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, told officials that the climate change crisis had become much more urgent in the last six years.
“The whole of nature cries out at our mistreatment of her. If the planet were a patient, we would have treated her long ago. You, ladies and gentlemen, have the power to put her on life support, and you must surely start the emergency procedures without further procrastination.”
He said that governments had the technology and money to tackle the problem, but lacked the will and the framework to use them wisely and at scale.
“In damaging our climate we become the architects of our own destruction. While the planet can survive the scorching of the Earth and the rising of the waters, the human race cannot. The absurd thing is we exactly what needs to be done,” he said.
