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How much money do you think it will cost to save the world from a climate catastrophe?
According to King Charles III. it’s about $5 trillion. Each year.
That’s what the British royal family said on Friday to a packed conference of green advocates and heads of state who traveled from around the world – many on private jets – to meet at the posh United Nations climate summit in Dubai, known as COP 28.
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King Charles III in Dubai for the COP 28 summit. (Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images)
The US commits to shutting down its coal-fired power plants during COP28
Charles, 75, warned that the world was “venturing into dangerous, uncharted territory” and said he was praying that “transformative action” would be taken at the gathering.
“How can we bring our public, private, philanthropic and non-governmental organizations together? [non-governmental organization] “We want to make the individual sectors increasingly effective so that they can all make their contribution to climate protection?” Charles asked the crowd, which also included former Vice President Al Gore and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
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Public finances alone are not enough, he added.
“But with the private sector firmly at the table … we could mobilize the trillions of dollars we need, on the order of four and a half to five trillion a year, to drive the transformation we need.”
U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry speaks at COP 28, left, and at the Brandon Shores Power Plant in Baltimore, Maryland. (Sean Gallup and Mark Wilson via Getty)
To put that number in perspective, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, it is about 20% of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2022, which was $25.46 trillion.
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Charles didn’t specify who would pay what or where exactly the money would go, although he said the funds should go toward projects that drive sustainable change and away from practices that “make our world more dangerous.”
At least some of the funding would likely go to the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations fund tasked with helping developing countries mitigate and combat climate change.
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COP28 logo on the opening day of the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on November 30, 2023. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
On Saturday, the US pledged $3 billion to the fund, in addition to another $2 billion previously committed by the United States. U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry announced at the summit that the U.S. will not build new coal-fired power plants and phase out existing ones to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
In his speech, Charles also called on different types of organizations to come together in the fight against climate change and urged the world to increase investment in green, renewable energy.
“Some important progress has been made, but it concerns me greatly that we have gone so terribly off track,” Charles said.
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It is unclear whether Charles will donate to the fund. According to Forbes, the royal family is worth $28 billion.