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Help me save Earth, Charles tells 150 business leaders
Sri Carmichael01.05.09
Prince Charles was due to lecture 150 London business leaders today on the huge steps they must take to make their companies greener.
He summoned them for talks on how to prevent a climate-change crisis as a survey showed the majority of firms in the capital have done little to reduce their carbon footprint.
Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, Steve Duncan, executive chairman of Alliance Boots, and Mark Evans, chief executive of London rugby club Harlequins, are among those attending the day-long summit at Billingsgate Market, in the City.
Pen Hadow of the Catlin Arctic Survey team will issue a May Day alert to delegates by video message from the North Pole, warning that the world's ice caps are melting fast.
Mr Hadow will echo the Prince's view that the biggest problem faced by business leaders is the climate crunch, not the credit crunch.
The Prince's intervention comes days after he used a meeting with the Pope to warn that the world was on the brink of disaster. During the Vatican visit he said humanity risked plunging into a "new Dark Age" unless urgent action was taken on global warming.
Last month the Prince secured a prominent platform for his environmental crusade with a publishing deal for a provocative book on climate change called Harmony, due out next year. The book, which the Prince is writing with former Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper, warns that humanity has become "dangerously disconnected" from nature and has attracted comparisons with Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
Today a poll commissioned by the Prince's May Day Network, a group of 1,170 businesses working to protect the environment, revealed only 35 per cent of London firms have measured their carbon emissions.
It shows most are ill prepared for the Carbon Reduction Commitment law which compels firms to account for emissions from next year.
Fewer than six in 10 London businesses have started introducing even simple measures to reduce energy output, such as shutting down computers at night. More than four in 10 firms said they were unsure of how to adapt to the new regulations and needed more guidance.
Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband was also delivering a speech on the Government's strategy for achieving a low carbon economy.An extra £100million of new funding over the next two years was announced in the Budget to help companies become more energy efficient.
The Carbon Trust will help deliver it through its loans scheme for companies to buy equipment, which is being tripled in size.
Mr Miliband said: "The interest-free loans mean businesses can improve their energy efficiency and make real savings on their energy bills when every penny counts."
The May Day Summit will be relayed live to conferences throughout the UK and in Canada and can be watched at www.maydaysummit.com.
Reader views (12)
Nice picture: the two most useless people in this world together!
- Mark, london
There is a simple solution - reduce and reverse third world birth rates dramatically.
- Frank, ex-England
The mans barking,he chose the wrong forum to raise this issue,if it were up to the pope we would be back in the dark ages before you could say condom.
- Kev, London-UK
This really bugs me. The Earth doesn't need saving. Our ability to sustain living on it does. It surely makes sense that at some point in time some type of evolutionary factor will force a situation where human beings are either wiped out en Mass or will dwindle and die out. Our own stupidity is forcing the hand of that situation and speeding the process up but it will be inevitable. The Earth however, notwithstanding exploding or something, will still be here.
- Real, London
Real. London,
You have stolen my thunder so to speak!
What I find laughable is Bonny prince Charlie talking to a religious leader whom is totally opposed to population control, the very factor that is responsible for the inevitable disaster that will engulf the globe!
Ah well, we will have to wait until Wars/Pandemics/Famine, etc, etc do the job!
There is good news and bad news about the above, the good news is the Earth will live on after us, the bad news is the Cockroaches will inherit it, all I can say is, the Politicians will be welcome to it!
GERONIMO
- Kenneth Hickford, LONDON
For it is written; Woe to them that teach with their fingers....what are these two men teaching (I ask you)? GOD is not a respecter of persons and tells us not to call anyone father (in spirit) for there is but one God and Father of all. charles, did your DNA match the Czars of Russia ? I bet it didn't.
- Carl, maine,usa
The Queen has just celebrated her birthday, and when I see what Charles is up to I always pray she'll live for ever.
- Kate, London
Ridiculous, this speech is of no importance to anyone except Mr Winsor who feels he, somehow, knows best. Business leaders will simply attend because they are summoned to, just to make him feel good. When will he finally realise that we are not interested in his lectures and bright ideas and that all is expected of him is to look the part, smile and shake hands for which he will receive a massive salary paid by the working British public. Talk about abismal price to value ratio!
- Fanfan La Tulipe, London
Charles and Brown - the dynamic duo.
- Tony Gee, London
Suggest you have a chat with Crash, Charles. Apparently he's out there saving the WORLD.....
- Marianne (Uk National And Tax-Payer!), SW France/London
I agree. Reduce the nations Carbon trotter print by 40% Charles - Get a 9 to 5 job doing WORK. I suggest also that you scrap your FLEET of gas guzzlers and cut your jet trips to no more than thirty or forty a year.
Why not get 'er indoors' to get a part time job too.
Hippy!
- Ethan, UK
This really bugs me. The Earth doesn't need saving. Our ability to sustain living on it does. It surely makes sense that at some point in time some type of evolutionary factor will force a sitation where human beings are either wiped out en masse or will dwindle and die out. Our own stupidity is forcing the hand of that situation and speeding the process up but it will be inevitable. The Earth however, notwithsanding exploding or something, will still be here.
- Real, London
It is hypocritical of Prince Charles to lecture anyone on how to save the earth. How many trips has he made by private jet in the last twelve months?
- R.F., Yorks, UK
