Prince William crowns five climate champions as Earthshot Prize lands in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In a star-studded ceremony at Rio de Janeiro’s Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow), Britain’s Prince William tonight presented the 2025 Earthshot Prize to five global initiatives he described as “proof that progress is possible.” The winners — spanning rainforest restoration, urban clean-air policy, ocean protection, sustainable fashion and disaster resilience — each receive £1 million (about $1.3 million) to scale their work.
A Rio night of music, culture and climate urgency
The awards night marked the Earthshot Prize’s first visit to Latin America and capped a three-day environmental programme for the Prince in Rio ahead of next week’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil. The ceremony blended glamour with urgency: local and international musicians performed, Brazilian cultural moments framed the evening, and political and civic leaders sat alongside celebrities to spotlight solutions rather than doom. Performers and guests included Anitta, Gilberto Gil, Shawn Mendes and Kylie Minogue — underscoring the Prize’s effort to bring climate action into mainstream culture.
The winners: practical solutions with big ambitions
The five winners of the 2025 Earthshot Prize — one for each Earthshot goal — were unveiled on stage and are set to receive financial backing and global partnership support:
Protect & Restore Nature — re.green (Brazil): An AI-driven approach to accelerate large-scale forest restoration and biodiversity recovery.
Clean Our Air — The City of Bogotá (Colombia): Recognised for pioneering urban policies that dramatically reduced pollution and improved public health through transport and planning reforms.
Revive Our Oceans — The High Seas Treaty (global): A diplomatic and legal milestone to protect marine biodiversity beyond national waters.
Build a Waste-free World — Lagos Fashion Week (Nigeria): Honoured for shifting a major fashion market toward circular, waste-minimizing systems that reduce textile pollution.
Fix Our Climate — Friendship (Bangladesh): A humanitarian and resilience organisation credited for innovative community-led work improving climate resilience in vulnerable coastal communities.
The Earthshot organisation said winners were selected from nearly 2,500 nominations across dozens of countries and represent solutions that are already delivering measurable impact.
Prince William: optimism, action, and local leadership
Onstage, Prince William struck an upbeat, mobilising tone — acknowledging the scale of the climate emergency while urging rapid scaling of proven solutions. He opened parts of his remarks in Portuguese and highlighted youth and community leadership as key to progress. The Prince framed the Earthshot Prize as a vehicle not just for financing but for connecting innovators with the political, business and philanthropic muscle needed to replicate success at scale.
“Tonight isn’t about celebration for its own sake,” he said, according to reporters on the ground. “It’s about showing what’s possible when creativity, courage and collaboration come together.” (Full speech excerpts and video are available via Earthshot’s official channels.)
Local impact and the wider context
Hosting Earthshot in Rio underscores Brazil’s central role in global climate negotiations this year and offers a visible link between local conservation challenges — from mangrove protection to urban air quality — and global policy debates at COP30. In recent days, the Prince also visited community conservation projects and Indigenous-led efforts around the city, amplifying calls to recognise rights-based stewardship as part of climate solutions.
What comes next for the winners
Each winner will receive funding and access to Earthshot’s network of partners, which aims to help projects scale rapidly through technical assistance, political advocacy and private-sector partnerships. Organisers said the goal is to turn promising pilots into systems-level change by 2030 — the decade the Earthshot Prize was designed to accelerate.
Reaction and significance
Environmentalists and diplomats attending COP30 will now watch closely to see whether the prize money and spotlight translate into faster implementation and broader adoption. Observers say the mix of celebrity, policymaker attendance, and large awards helps push practical solutions into the headline conversation — but success will depend on follow-through: scaling funding, navigating regulatory hurdles, and securing long-term political commitment.
