Mike Bloomberg at The Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit

Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here. I'm honored to welcome you to the greatest city in the world. I'm a little bit prejudiced about that. And to the iconic Plaza Hotel. And if this is your first time here, you might recognize the lobby from the cinematic masterpiece Home Alone Two. It's about a ten year old boy who is smarter than every adult he comes across. And today, we see a version of that movie play out every day, because even most children understand the climate crisis is real and it's not a future threat. It is something that is a threat right now. And the effects are only getting worse. Just look at the news. Once in a century, floods occur what seems like every other year, like in West Africa, where as we speak, severe flooding has displaced millions of people and caused more than a thousand deaths. Hurricanes plummet the Caribbean and the US with increasing frequency and velocity and ferocious cyclones doing the same thing to the Asia-Pacific region. Historic droughts make land infertile and borderline uninhabitable. More frequent and bigger wildfires laying waste to towns and heat waves that set new records and taking more lives. And if that doesn't impress you, I don't know what would. All of that should be enough to spur bold action on climate change. But there's another reason to act, which Prince William recognized in launching the Earthshot Prize. And it's this: Climate change isn't only the biggest challenge we face. It is also our greatest opportunity to build a better, healthier and more prosperous future. It's a chance to spur innovation and inventions that improve people's lives. To support new collaborations across borders and across industries and to push new frontiers of discovery. And supporting that spirit of innovation and collaboration is what the Earthshot Prize is all about. And that's why we're here today. Now, there are a lot of prizes for a lot of different fields, including the Nobel Prize, which is awarded to the world's greatest artists and scientists in their respective fields. But one category the Nobel Committee does not recognize is the environment, which means there's no Nobel Prize for saving the world from the biggest collective challenge we have ever faced. And so in 2020, Prince William and the Royal Foundation set out to fill the void by creating the Earthshot Prize. Through the prize, the prince is helping the next generation lead the way by building on his family's long track record of environmental stewardship. When the prince first mentioned the idea to me, I was glad to come aboard as an adviser. And Bloomberg Philanthropies was glad to become its first founding partner. Unlike other prizes that honor breakthroughs that have already occurred, the Earthshot Prize seeks to support new innovations and promising ideas, and it engages young entrepreneurs and emerging climate leaders. And so it looks to the future rather than the past. Our team at Bloomberg Philanthropies was glad to be a part of the project's development process, and a key part of that work was ensuring the prize helps the finalists scale up their ideas, because too often promising solutions never make it off the drawing board because they can't get the private and public support that they need. That's why we hold this event here in New York during the General Assembly every year to connect the finalists with the world's great climate leaders in both science, policy and finance who can help them refine, fund and scale their ideas. And I'm glad to say that when it comes to the ideas put forward by the Earthshot Prize winners, we're seeing their creativity and ingenuity in action. They're developing innovative solutions like a stove that produces 70% less pollution than traditional stoves and livestock feed that helps reduce methane pollution. They're also working in their communities on local concerns, like addressing air quality in Poland and managing extreme heat risks in Sierra Leone. Those are only a few examples of groundbreaking, impactful work being done by our winners and finalists. And since we launched the Earthshot Prize, it has generated more than 4,000 nominations across more than 160 countries. And we've named 45 finalists and 15 winners. Today, we'll be announcing the next group of 15 finalists. And I know we have some past winners here with us today, and it's been great to see their work spread and make a difference. After the prizes are announced. So I want to thank all of them for their commitment to saving our planet and creating a better future for our children and our grandchildren. And I also want to recognize Earthshot CEO Hannah Jones, along with Prince William. Her leadership has been integral in bringing these ideas to the world and the process that she's helped to turn the Earthshot Prize into a global platform with a scale and scope that continues to grow. Before I close, I also want to thank everyone here for joining us and for all your support. The group has been critical to the Earthshot's success. Its mission really could not be more important, and the stakes for our success could not be higher. And everyone here gives me hope that we can and will. We will win the battle against climate change. God help us if we don't. Thank you all for coming and thank you for your support of this. You couldn't be in a better place than right here seeing the future. We've just got to make sure that it is the future. Thank you very much.