Prince of Wales calls for global effort to help climate
Prince Charles said the world is not reacting quickly enough to climate change
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Thursday, 14, Feb 2008 03:38
A global partnership must be formed to tackle the problem of climate change, the Prince of Wales told the European Parliament today.
Prince Charles called on the public and private sectors as well as non-governmental organisations to make "corporate social responsibility truly global and truly effective".
"For me, the crux of the problem is – and I only pray I will be proved wrong – that the doomsday clock of climate change is ticking ever faster towards midnight," he said.
"We are simply not reacting quickly enough. We cannot be anything less than courageous and revolutionary in our approach to tackling climate change. If we are not, the result will be catastrophe for all of us, but with the poorest in our world hit hardest of all."
His royal highness warned that a failure to reduce global warming will increase instability and urged the European Parliament to give "determined and principled leadership".
"There can be no doubt that for those countries whose economic, political and environmental systems are already under stress, the extra burden of climate change might well be the determining factor between security and instability – and instability that will reach far beyond the boundaries of those states and affect each and every one of us," he said.
His speech has been warmly welcomed by Friends of the Earth (FoE), which congratulated him for highlighting the scale of the problem of climate change.
"The Prince of Wales has today raised issues of urgent importance that demand immediate political action," said FoE director Tony Juniper.
"We are fast drifting towards a climatic disaster that could lead to humanitarian catastrophe, economic recession and dramatic environmental change. And while the resources and ingenuity to tackle climate change exist, we still lack the political will to make real changes to how we live, meet our needs and run our economies."