LONDON – Prince William has joined forces with renowned British broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough to launch a new environmental prize that they hope will drive a “decade of change.”The Earthshot Prize, launched Thursday, has grand ambitions, to “incentivize change and help to repair our planet over the next 10 years.”The plan is that five prizes of 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) will be awarded each year for the next 10 years, providing at least 50 solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems by 2030.The first five Earthshots centre on protecting and restoring nature, clean air, reviving oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing the climate.“I felt very much that there’s a lot of people wanting to do many good things for the environment and what they need is a bit of a catalyst, a bit of hope, a bit of positivity that we can actually fix what’s being presented,“ the prince told BBC radio.“The Earthshot Prize is really about harnessing that optimism and that urgency to find solutions to some of the world’s greatest environmental problems.”The first set of nominations are set to open on Nov. 1 with an annual global awards ceremony to be held in a different city each year, starting with London in the fall of 2021.The prize fund will be provided by the project’s global alliance founding partners, a group which includes the philanthropic bodies of billionaires like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, and Michael BloombergAttenborough said time is of the essence.“Suddenly there are real dangers that there may be a tipping point in which the icecaps of the North Pole begin to melt, which it’s doing already,“ he told BBC radio. “People can see it’s happening and it’s a matter of great urgency now.”Loading…Loading…Loading…Loading…Loading…Loading…