Prince William’s visit to the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio today was an opportunity for a quietly heartfelt tribute to his late mother, Diana and also marked the start of the big day for his Earthshot Prize ceremony.
Royal Editor Chris Ship is in Rio
There are few people for whom the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue is closed to the public for their visit, but Prince William is one of them.
Of course, those of us accompanying the future King on his trip to Brazil were also rewarded with a similar experience after an early alarm call on Wednesday.
Looking out from this great wonder of the world, you see Rio de Janeiro and its beaches far below, the clouds still hug the peaks of the mountains which surround the city and even the planes are flying beneath you.
The reason why the Prince of Wales made this journey and gathered his Earthshot Prize finalists at 2,300 feet first thing on Wednesday morning was to kick off what William’s team call his ‘Super Bowl’ moment.
Today is the culmination of his annual Earthshot Prize scheme, and the glitzy award ceremony tonight will hand £1 million each to five winners, as it has now done in the previous four years.
The money is used to grow, develop and upscale projects and ideas which help the health of the planet and clean our oceans.
The Earthshot is now halfway through its ten-year life, and this one has felt bigger and better than those which came before.
Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Rio to join William tonight, the first time a UK prime minister has attended the Awards, where the 15 finalists will mix with performers like Kylie Minogue and Shawn Mendes.
This year, the potential winners include a UK firm, Matter, which has designed a filter to prevent microplastics from entering the oceans from domestic and industrial washing machines, to a Brazilian organisation called Re-green which replants tropical forests on degraded land once used for cattle grazing.
We don’t know where the Award ceremony will land next year and which city will follow London, Boston, Singapore, Cape Town and now Rio.
All the indicators point to Australia for 2026, if William wants to tick off another continent, and there is even some talk about the ceremony heading to China before the end of the ten-year scheme, given the country is now a leading manufacturer of the batteries and solar panels the world needs for clean energy.
And, tomorrow, when the stage is being disassembled and the green (not red) carpet is being rolled up, Prince William will travel with the prime minister to the Amazon region in the north of Brazil for the Cop30 summit.
The hosts, the Brazilian government, decided to hold the UN conference close to the country’s tropical rainforests for symbolic reasons, despite the enormous challenges of hosting so many world leaders in a city which isn’t big enough to do it.
But without Donald Trump’s attendance, it will be difficult for the rest of the world to make any serious reductions in carbon emissions given the US is by far the biggest polluter and consumer of resources per head of population.
King Charles decided not to travel to this Cop summit, as he had done before, given his son was already in the country and it did not make environmental sense for him to fly here.
It means William’s speech on the opening day of the leaders’ conference will be on behalf of the King.
But it will serve to remind the world that William will one day succeed his father, and whilst he may take a different approach to the challenge, he has very similar views to Charles on the perilous state of the planet and the alarming loss of natural habitats.
William’s team often say he is growing into his leadership role on the world stage, and this is another moment on that path from heir to the throne to, when the time comes, being Monarch.
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