Prince Charles: reform
capitalism to save the planet.
A “fundamental transformation of global capitalism” is needed in order
to tackle climate change, the Prince of Wales has said
By Emily
Gosden7:30PM BST 27 May 2014 / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html
Prince
Charles has called for an end to capitalism as we know it in order to save the
planet from global warming.
In a speech
to business leaders in London ,
the Prince said that a “fundamental transformation of global capitalism” was
necessary in order to halt “dangerously accelerating climate change” that would
“bring us to our own destruction”.
He called
for companies to focus on “approaches that achieve lasting and meaningful
returns” by protecting the environment, improving their employment practices
and helping the vulnerable to develop a new "inclusive capitalism".
The Prince
was taking part in his first major UK public engagement since sparking
a diplomatic row last week by likening the behaviour of Vladimir Putin, the
Russian president, to Adolf Hitler.
In a
politically-charged speech at the Inclusive Capitalism conference, the Prince
said: “I remember when the Iron Curtain came down there was a certain amount of
shouting about the triumph of capitalism over communism. Being somewhat
contrary, I didn't think it was quite as simple as that. I felt that unless the
business world considered the social, community and environmental dimensions,
we might end up coming full circle.”
The Prince,
who has long been outspoken about the need to tackle climate change, said the
world now stood at “a pivotal moment in history” ahead of major UN summit in Paris next year on
reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
“Over the
next eighteen months, and bearing in mind the urgency of the situation
confronting us, the world faces what is probably the last effective window of
opportunity to vacate the insidious lure of the ‘last chance saloon’ in order
to agree an ambitious, equitable and far-sighted multilateral settlement in the
context of the post-2015 sustainable development goals and the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change,” he said.
“Either we
continue along the path we seem collectively determined to follow, apparently
at the mercy of those who so vociferously and aggressively deny that our
current operating model has any effect upon dangerously accelerating climate
change - which I fear will bring us to our own destruction - or we can choose
to act now before it is finally too late, using all of the power and influence
that each of you can bring to bear to create an inclusive, sustainable and
resilient society,” he said.
The Prince
was addressing an audience of 200 business leaders including Christine Lagarde,
managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and chief executives of
multinational companies such as UBS, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever.
He called
on businesses to focus on the long-term and make “an authentic moral commitment
to acting as true custodians of the Earth and architects of the well-being of
current and future generations”.
“It is only
by adopting a broader sense of value that our finances will be sustained and we
can find new sources of profit,” he said.
His
comments appear to align with those of Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, who has
called for “responsible capitalism”.
The Prince
suggested that companies must do more to put “young people properly at the
heart of companies' employment practices and planning strategies, in order to
tackle more effectively the world's growing youth unemployment crisis”.
Businesses
must also “account properly for carbon dioxide emissions, the use of water and
fertiliser, the pollution we produce and the biodiversity we lose”, he said.
The Prince
said that businesses would be unpopular with their peers in the short term for
going green but would reap “immense” rewards in the long term.
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