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The Prince of Wales speaks at the Low Carbon Prosperity Summit in Brussels
9th February 2011
The Prince of Wales today spoke about the pursuit of economic growth at the expense of the environment during a speech at the Low Carbon Prosperity Summit in Brussels.
His Royal Highness used a speech at the European Parliament climate change conference in Brussels to address the link between growth and the production of high-carbon goods.
During the speech, The Prince also spoke about the benefits of starting sustainable living, rather than focusing on what people should stop, one of the key messages of his START initiative launched in September 2010.
The Prince said a "business as usual" approach to increasing national wealth was just a short-term remedy.
"I cannot see how we can possibly maintain the growth of GDP in the long term if we continue to consume our planet as voraciously as we are doing," he said.
"We have to see that there is a direct relationship between the resilience of Nature's ecosystems and the resilience of our national economies.
"If the fabric of the Earth's life-support system fragments, as it appears it may be starting to do; if those systems become weak or even collapse - essentially, if Nature's capital loses its innate resilience - then how long does it take for our economic capital and economic systems to lose their resilience too?"
The Prince highlighted the fate of the world's rainforests as a "graphic example" of the problem.
A third of the world's tropical rainforests have been felled in the last 50 years and six million hectares more disappear annually - the equivalent area of nearly 24,000 football pitches every day.
"With them go tens of thousands of species of plant and animal - gone forever, into extinction, together with who knows how many vital cures and medicines."
His Royal Highness was asked to address the Low Carbon Prosperity Summit in recognition of decades spent promoting environmental awareness - particularly the last four years focusing on saving tropical rainforests from further destruction.
He added: "Stopping deforestation is not a lifestyle choice, it is an absolutely critical part of any low-carbon growth plan.
"If we fail to address this problem, despite everything else we might do, there is no answer to climate change."
"We need to meet the challenge of decoupling economic growth from increased consumption in such a way that both the well-being of Nature's ecology and our own economic needs do not suffer."
Further information:
The Prince of Wales’s Environmental and Social Responsibility
Read more about the START initiative
Visit the Accounting for Sustainability website