News
The Prince gives a speech on climate change from tropical deforestation
10th September 2008
The Prince of Wales today called for a "sense of wartime urgency" in a bid to save the rainforests and cap global warming.
The Prince, addressing a dinner at Mansion House in the City of London, described tropical forests as "the world's lifebelt," the destruction of which could result in "unprecedented geopolitical and economic upheaval".
His Royal Highness was speaking in his role as founder of The Prince's Rainforests Project which aims to highlight the value of the world's remaining rainforests. Click here to visit the website and show your support for the project.
The Prince's Rainforests Project was set up in 2007 in a bid to find solutions to the problem of tropical deforestation.
In his speech The Prince outlined the devastating effect that destroying the world's precious rainforests could have on climate change and what this could mean for the world at large.
He said: "I would suggest that for too long the destruction of the rainforests has been seen as a slightly troubling event occurring in 'far away countries about which we know little', and something which only marginally affects us.
"The trouble is that nothing could be further from the truth."
The Prince said the phenomena of climate change and rainforests were "umbilically connected".
He said: "It is no exaggeration to say that rainforests are the world's lifebelt.
"They act as giant global utilities, providing essential public services to humanity on a vast scale.
"They are the world's air conditioning system and also help to store the largest body of flowing water on the planet - water which is essential to grow food for the world's growing population."
The Prince noted that rainforests were being destroyed at the rate of around 30 million acres a year - equivalent to a football pitch every four seconds.
But he said that this destruction could be halted and that combating deforestation could be the most cost effective means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
He told guests at the dinner, including Sir Richard Attenborough, that the fight against climate change was a "battle for survival".
The Prince said: "The consequences of such dramatic change are huge, even in the medium term with hundreds of millions of people displaced leading to security issues which will dwarf what we have witnessed in recent years and result in unprecedented geopolitical and economic upheaval.
"This is why I often use the analogy of war because I fear we are engaged in a battle for our very survival.
"We must mobilise ourselves, indeed the whole world, with that real sense of wartime urgency and resolve to act together."
In a bid to protect rainforests, The Prince suggested that a way needed to be found to "make the forests worth more alive than dead".
His Royal Highness called for a joint effort by the state and the private sector to find a way for the environmental value of rainforests to outweigh their worth as a source for logging, palm oil, beef, soya and other industries that contribute to their destruction.
He said: "Relying on governments' intervention alone will not be enough. What will make the whole difference is the engagement of financial institutions."
He added: "We need to change the geography of our imagination to believe that we can win this battle and not to give up and somehow imagine we can just 'adapt' to climate change - because, believe you me, that is merely a convenient pipe dream, pursued by those who take refuge in the 'business as usual with little green knobs on' approach to the crisis we face."
Click here to read The Prince's speech in full.
Click here to show your support at The Prince's Rainforests Project website or click here to read the story on the Project website.