PRINCE WILLIAM’S EARTHSHOT PRIZE AND AMERICA’S NO. 47

We must do more to safeguard the planet, argues JOSHUA J.OMOJUWA

He will go down in history as the one with two numbers and one of them was 45. If you are thinking, ‘Michael Jordan,’ then you aren’t thinking. Or maybe you aren’t just in the moment. The United States is what it is, the rest of the world must take more responsibilities for the sake of our planet. With U.S. President 47 coming, the earth will need more sustainability shots than ever, because he may be deemed bad at many things, he is good at keeping to his ways. His ways are not exactly about green or circular economies and sustainable development may be as alien to him as pretending to be anything but himself.

This is why the Earthshot Prize and other such sustainability initiatives are important. Founded by the Prince of Wales, the Earthshot Prize runs a holistic and segmented search around the world for what it calls, “game-changing innovations” intended with the rejuvenation of the earth in mind. Five of those innovations are then awarded £1 million each, to help advance and scale their projects. The beautiful thing is, the other finalists who don’t get chosen for the prize end up as winners too, as the focus given to their work by the Earthshot nomination helps them attract investors and other supporters. In that sense, the earth wins, because virtually all the highlighted innovators win.

This year, having been selected by its 400 official nominators who have now selected 15 of the most impressive innovations, the lot of them selected across rural and indigenous communities, big business and even governments. The solutions are around what are considered five Earthshots needed to help recover and restore the earth before it is damaged beyond redemption. They are Protect and Restore Nature; Clean our Air; Revive our Oceans; Build a Waste-Free World and Fix our Climate.

In the end, the winners were Protect and Restore Nature Winner: Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, Clean Our Air Winner: GAYO, Green Africa Youth Organization, Revive Our Oceans Winner: High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC), Build a Waste-free World Winner: Keep IT Cool (KIC), Fix Our Climate Winner: Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems (ATS). They will all enjoy ample attention from a global community of change makers who are committed to building a more sustainable earth.

We tend to take it for granted that the earth will take care of itself. That position is counterintuitive when you consider the fact that the world is where it is today because we committed our civilisation towards advancement and the development of better tools. A tendered garden is vastly different from one left to take care of itself, we care for our bodies, most people even wear some protective gear for their phones. We do our best to nurture and protect everything, living or inanimate, that we care about. It just so happens that, the one that holds everything together is treated like an afterthought at best, or forgotten altogether.

The effects could not be more apparent. Our oceans are warming and rising, storms are deadlier and fiercer, floods are claiming more lives than ever, even in developed countries, depleting water bodies are resulting in displacement and even terrorism, food shortage, poverty, etc. When you think about it, some of the world’s greatest challenges today find their root in what we have refused to do: we are not doing enough to safeguard the planet. We think it is the responsibility of some other people, in some other place, to save what belongs to all of us. Even when the cost of indecisions and poor judgments stare us in the face, we refuse to acknowledge the root causes even as we scramble around for shallow solutions.

As the United States transits to an inevitable new era where America will shirk some of its responsibilities on the world stage whilst a nationalist agenda inevitably grips the nation by storm, the rest of the world must see this as an opportunity for collective responsibility. Our agenda for a protected and nurtured earth will face renewed daunting challenges and to pretend not to know this is to be caught unawares by a devil you already know. This is not the first rodeo; it is a sequel. Often, sequels are deadlier. We hope for the best, however, hope will not be enough. We’ve got work to do.

We continue to assume lessons have been learnt, but evidence suggests we are investing a lot in assumptions when we should be dealing in facts. The fact being that Americans — at least most of its voters — prefer for their country to step away from policing and expending its resources on the rest of the world. They spoke resoundingly in this election. The political system experienced a major shock with the 2016 elections, eight years on, it is hard to call last Tuesday’s a shock because for most of the summer, he appeared on the brink of victory with the Democrats dilly-dallying over what to do with Biden. Here we are.

During his Earthshot speech, Prince William said, “It was an idea that first came to me on African soil. During a trip to Namibia and Tanzania, I was lucky enough to see some of the stunning wildlife that calls this continent home.” This was his testament to the importance of Africa in the work we must do to restore the earth. Africa hasn’t been nowhere as responsible as the rest of the world for the depleting state of the world’s resources. Sadly though, we are suffering some of the gravest consequences. It was great to see two African winners take prizes home; the continent will need more of their innovations to give itself a great shot at reversing some of the effects of climate change.

If we do not act right and fast enough, we will not get more of the same deadly effects of climate change. That’s an optimistic view. This could get worse. Things are out of hand, but they are not out of reach.

 Omojuwa is chief strategist, Alpha Reach/BGX Publishing