Climate Change: Young climate change activists Luisa Neubauer and Ernest Gibson join Prince William's Earthshot Prize

20 May 2021

Two young climate change activists have joined the Earthshot Prize judging panel, Prince William has announced.

Luisa Neubauer and Ernest Gibson have been described by the Prince as bringing "much needed youthfulness and expertise and activism" to the panel.

The Earthshot Prize is a competition that aims to help solve "some of the world's greatest environmental challenges".

Every year until 2030 the judges will give out five prizes of £1 million - with a total prize fund of £50 million.

Learn more about the Earthshot prize and climate change here

Prince William's prize plan to help protect our planet

Climate change: What is it?

Seven young climate activists from around the world

Who are Luisa Neubauer and Ernest Gibson?

Getty Images

This is Luisa Neubauer

Luisa and Ernest will be joining Prince William, David Attenborough and pop singer Shakira on the judging panel.

Luisa is 24 and she is the face of a movement called Fridays for Future in Germany.

Similarly to Greta Thunberg, Luisa inspired many young people to protest for change to help the environment.

Ernest Gibson TWITTER

This is Ernest Gibson

Ernest is from Fiji, he's the co-coordinator for 350 Fiji, a regional youth-led climate change network, and a member of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's new Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

I'm tired of being told that you can't do something or being told that 'God, this is a lost cause' or ... we're on a course that we can no longer change, and I think this provides a level of hope that's enormously needed now. What we need now is solutions because we don't have time for anything else, we have 10 years basically to be able to turn this ship around.

— Ernest Gibson , Climate change activist talking about the Earthshot Prize

The two new panellists received a video call from Prince William, who told them that he understands how important youth climate change movements are.

He said: "It's all our futures but it's particularly your future and also I think the youth movement has shown just how important the environment and climate is being held, and that's been really interesting to watch young people around the world speak up a lot about it".

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