Prince Charles warns environmental threat even more alarming than recession

The Prince of Wales, in his first intervention on the recession, has warned that the threat to the environment is even more "alarming" than the economic downturn.
Andrew Pierce, The Telegraph 17 Dec 08'

In an address to some of Britain's business leaders he said the principal factors which caused the collapse in the international banking system also lie at the heart of the "climate crunch".

He said: "There are a number of parallels that can be drawn between the current financial crisis and the looming, and even more alarming, environmental crisis."

He cited, overconsumption, indebtedness, overconfidence in market and regulatory systems and short-termism, as features that lay at the heart of the looming environmental disaster.

"Just as the world is hopefully coming together to tackle the credit crunch, so we need to work together even more powerfully, and with the same sense of urgency, to tackle climate change and the challenges of a resource constrained world," he said in a speech at a conference at St James's Palace for the Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Forum.

The forum has brought together more than 200 representatives from the business, investor, academic, accounting and public sectors to help develop systems to enable organisations to measure more effectively the wider environmental and social costs of their actions and business decisions.

The speech comes after the Daily Telegraph reported that the Queen hoped that members of the Royal Family would follow her example and avoid any overt displays of public extravagance because of the deepening recession, which threatens to push unemployment to three million.

The Queen also revealed her deep concern about the impact of the recession when she was overheard asking academics at the London School of Economics: "Why did no one see it coming?"

The Prince said he was not trying to suggest that governments should focus on solving one of the problems rather than the other. But he said a "growing chorus" of voices now urges a response which is geared to dealing with both at the same time.

"New industries, millions of new jobs and many new commercial opportunities can go hand-in-hand with transformation toward an ecologically durable economy," he said.

"The ecosystems on which we all rely for our survival are more complex and less well-understood than the global financial system, and my great fear – a long-held one, for which I have been roundly abused and ridiculed – is that by the time these problems are understood and addressed it will be too late and, very importantly, that unlike financial capital our natural capital cannot be replenished."

He said the Accounting for Sustainability project, which he set up in December 2006, was created to help ensure that sustainability becomes embedded in the DNA of organisations.

"Unless this is the case, sustainability considerations will not become embedded within organisations' day to day operations and decision making so that having, hopefully, survived the credit crunch, we will not have learned the much larger lessons and will merely carry on regardless to a much more painful, calamitous and, crucially, irretrievable climate crunch."

The conference was also addressed by Stephen Green, group chairman of HSBC bank which stands to lose up to £688 million in the Madoff Wall Street fraud.

Mr Green warned against reducing the priority attached to tackling climate change in the crisis. He said: "The climate change agenda will not pass, this is something that is with us for the rest of time. This is something that we do have to attend to for the sake not only of our children but for our grandchildren and onwards."