Prince William to PEOPLE: 'The Future of Our Planet Hangs in the Balance'

Chris Jackson/Getty Prince William

Prince William knows there is no time to waste. On Friday night, the Prince of Wales sat front and center as the second Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony was held at the MGM Music Hall in Boston, carefully listening and happily applauding as the five winners were celebrated for their innovative ideas helping to improve the planet. In an exclusive piece written for PEOPLE, Prince William explains why he brought the awards to Boston, the urgency of the winners' and finalists' work and why "we can be optimistic about the future of our planet."

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The future of our planet hangs in the balance. The actions we take in this crucial decade will determine what kind of world we leave for the next generation.

All around the world there are brilliant people working on the solutions to repair our planet. That's why I launched The Earthshot Prize — to find those game-changers and to supercharge them.

Samir Hussein/WireImage Kate Middleton and Prince William

That's the ethos of the Prize, that through the power of human ingenuity, combined with an urgency and a little optimism, seemingly impossible goals are within reach. It's a belief that underpinned President John F. Kennedy's 'Moonshot' of the 1960's — the gauntlet he threw down to put a man on the moon within the decade.

That's why we chose to hold the second year of Earthshot in Boston, the home of JFK and a world-renowned centre of scientific and technical excellence. There's no better place to celebrate the importance of the Moonshot philosophy to Earthshot, alongside the brilliant 2022 Finalists.

And it's incredibly exciting that this year we've continued to build momentum with 30% more nominations across the Earthshot's five categories. For 2022, we have chosen a group of innovators from around the world who represent a mindset of optimism, possibility, and creativity in reviving our oceans, cleaning our air, fixing our climate, reducing our waste, and protecting and restoring nature.

This year's finalists will build on the continuing legacy of the first cohort we celebrated in London last October. Since then, we've worked with each to scale up their solutions. I was lucky enough to visit one, Coral Vita, this year. They have expanded their innovative coral farms to the Middle East and Central America and a project in Grand Bahama has seen 6,000 corals replanted. Seeing these results first-hand reinforced that we can be optimistic about the future of our planet.

Chris Jackson/Getty Kate Middleton and Prince William

That's the message that we must get across. Yes, the future of our planet is precarious and yes, climate events are occurring more frequently and with much more serious, scary consequence. But this doesn't have to be the only story. There are people working to make a difference and by highlighting, supporting and scaling the best of them, The Earthshot Prize hopes to inspire in all of us the optimism and urgency to change our future.