Prince William wraps up Earthshot trip with visit to Kalk Bay

Britain’s Prince William visited Kalk Bay in the Cape on Thursday, the last day of a climate-focused trip to SA planned around his multimillion-pound environmental prize.

Launched in 2020, the Earthshot Prize aims to find innovations to combat the world’s biggest environmental problems. On Wednesday five winners were awarded £1m (R22.5m) each to drive their projects.

Prince William shook hands with people in the crowd as he toured Kalk Bay harbour on Thursday, where he met fishermen who spoke to him about sustainable fishing.

He said he had been drenched by a large wave on a boat trip from an earlier meeting with members of SA’s National Sea Rescue Institute.

A small group of protesters, outnumbered by well-wishers, shouted “Not your country.”

The heir to the British throne later joined celebrities who took part in awards ceremony, including supermodel Heidi Klum and actor Billy Porter, for a traditional fish braai on Thursday.

This year’s Earthshot Prize winners were announced at a ceremony in Cape Town on Wednesday evening. 

They were selected from 15 finalists from across the world. The prize is aimed at helping them get their solutions to scale.

The organisers said the Earthshot Prize wanted game-changing innovations “that will help us repair our planet, awarding the very best five solutions each year with £1m to scale their work”.

The five winners were:

• Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems, the US, for the Fix Our Climate award.

• High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, Global (120 countries), for the Revive Our Oceans award.

• Keep IT Cool, Kenya, for the Build a Waste-Free World award.

• Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, Kazakhstan, for the Protect and Restore Nature award.

• Green Africa Youth Organisation, Ghana, for the Clean Our Air award.

Prince William said the world could be rich in possibility, hope and optimism.

“That is why The Earthshot Prize exists. To champion the game-changers, the inventors, the makers, the creatives, the leaders; to help them build upon the amazing things they’ve already achieved; to speed their innovations to scale and to inspire the next generation to create the future we all need.”

About the winners 

Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems (ATS), has developed a simple, safe and scalable technology to capture waste heat and convert it into electricity, offering a solution for heavy industries like cement and steel production. These industries require extremely high temperatures, which generate vast amounts of waste heat that is typically lost. ATS’s technologies have the potential to save gigatonnes of CO₂.

An alliance of 119 countries with the ambitious goal to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030, High Ambition Coalition identifies technical, financial and knowledge gaps and connects governments with technical assistance and funding.

Kenya’s Keep IT Cool (KIC) addresses the challenge of food spoilage by providing sustainable, localised KIC refrigeration systems that help small farmers and fishers preserve their produce. By installing solar-powered cold storage units where fish are landed, KIC significantly reduces spoilage and waste.

The Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has saved the critically endangered Saiga antelope from extinction. The mission has grown into one of the world’s largest conservation projects and is focused on protecting and restoring Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe, one of the world’s least-protected natural ecosystems.

A youth-led, gender-balanced organisation, Green Africa Youth Organisation uses its “zero waste model” to encourage sustainable behavioural change in waste management practices across Africa that cut greenhouse gas emissions and particle pollution, while also bringing additional income to communities.

Their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and particle pollution in Ghana by 70% as well as to divert about 4,000 tonnes of waste by 2030. With TimesLIVE 

Reuters