he Prince of Wales has urged G7 leaders to show the same sense of urgency in tackling climate change that they have shown in tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
At a reception with leaders such as Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, Charles said the Covid-19 pandemic had shown what a “truly borderless crisis” looks like.
“Of course, we didn’t fully see Covid coming,” he said.
“Yet climate change and biodiversity loss represent a crisis without borders, the solutions to which have been debated and postponed for far too long.”
He said the battle against the pandemic provided a “clear example of the scale and speed at which the global community can respond to crises when we combine political will with business ingenuity and public mobilization”. .
Addressing G7 leaders and a group of business bosses, the prince said: “We are doing this for the pandemic. So if you allow me to say it, we also have to do it for the planet.
The prince has formed a group of more than 300 global business leaders to form a ‘coalition of the willing’ in his Sustainable Markets Initiative.
He said there were three “powerful messages” from the business world: “Firstly, industry and finance need clear market signals, standards and regulations to provide the essential conditions for them to reorient their operations more quickly and make the transitions.
“Second, international financial institutions need better ways to mobilize public finance, catalyze private finance and mitigate risk.
“And third, a transformative outcome will require a pipeline of fully developed and truly sustainable projects that are of sufficient scale and ready for investment.”
The prince’s speech came as three generations of the royal family mingled with G7 leaders at the Eden Project.
The Queen, Duchess of Cornwall and Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also attended events as part of the summit.
