Prince Charles calls for ‘warlike’ effort to fight climate change

Prince Charles on Monday urged world leaders to take aggressive action to fight climate change, likening it to a “military-style” effort that requires major private investment.

“We have to put ourselves on what might be called a warlike footing,” the 72-year-old royal said in his opening remarks at the United Nations COP26 meeting in Glasgow.

“We need a vast military-style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector with trillions at its disposal,” the Prince of Wales added.

Earlier this week, Prince Charles referred to the COP26 summit as “the last chance saloon” to save the planet.

At that time, he also underscored the “overwhelming responsibility to generations yet unborn” to mitigate climate change. 

“We know this will take trillions, not billions, of dollars.”

The Prince of Wales says a “vast military-style campaign” is needed to ‘marshal the strength of the global private sector with trillions at its disposal’.#COP26: https://t.co/P2QoFgAgfH pic.twitter.com/qqP178qknr

— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 1, 2021

“I know you all carry a heavy burden on your shoulders and you do not need me to tell you that the eyes and hopes of the world are upon you,” the royal said to the leaders gathered in Scotland.

“Time has quite literally run out,” he added. “We know what we must do.”

COP26 is the 26th annual gathering of the Conference of the Parties, which includes nations that ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1994.

During the climate summit, leaders will discuss ways to reduce global warming to a target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

The conference comes after a report from the World Meteorological Organization last week showed greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit record highs in 2020. Around the same time, the United Nations climate office announced that the world remains short of international goals to cut emissions in a worldwide push to reduce global warming.