Deployment of funds, not lack of capital, thwarting fight against climate change: Prince Charles

Terming climate change, biodiversity loss and global warming as the greatest threats faced by humanity ever, Prince Charles on Wednesday said it is not the lack of capital but the way it should be deployed which is thwarting the fight against these challenges.

Returning to Davos after nearly 30 years, Charles also met young climate activist Greta Thunberg here.

Climate change, biodiversity loss and global warming are the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, he said in a special address at the WEF 2020.

It is not a lack of capital that's holding us back from tackling these threats, but rather the way we deploy it, he added.

Prince Charles also announced the launch of a Sustainable Markets initiative and said this will put people and planet at the heart of global value creation.

He listed 10 practical actions that will drive the sustainable markets approach forward, including shifting our default setting to sustainable; outlining responsible transition pathways to decarbonise and move to net-zero; re-imagining industries through the lens of sustainable markets; and identifying game changers and barriers to transition.

The other actions listed by him were reversing perverse subsidies and improving incentives for sustainable alternatives; investing in STEM, innovation and R&D, investing in nature as the true engine of our economy; and adopting common metrics and standards.

Making sustainable options the trusted and attainable option for consumers; and connecting investments to platforms that can rapidly scale solutions were the other two actions.

On how quickly and who will drive us forward, Charles said we are further ahead than what one might think.

From sustainable investment to aviation, shipping and renewables, progress is being made in almost every industry that we can build on, he said. One critical lesson that we have to learn is that nature is not a separate asset class, nature is the lifeblood of our financial markets, he emphasised.

We must rapidly realign our own economy to mimic nature's economy and work with it, he added.

Prince Charles announced a series of roundtables -- beginning here at Davos and taking place throughout the year -- to identify game changers, investments and barriers to transition.

"Do we want to go down in history as the people who did nothing to bring the world back from from the brink," he asked.

"What good is all that extra wealth in the world gained from business-as-usual except watch it burn in catastrophic conditions?" he said.

On children and grandchildren, he said everything he has done over the last 50 years has been done with his children and grandchildren in mind. He said he did not want to be accused of doing nothing but prevaricate or deny the problem.

His son Prince William had attended WEF annual meeting here in 2019.