Prince William Brings a Children's Earthshot to Mumbai as Young Indians Pitch Climate Fixes

Prince William's Earthshot Prize will stage a Children's Earthshot in Mumbai next month, giving schoolchildren from across India a platform alongside the environmental innovators competing for the main awards. Fifteen teams of young people aged nine to 17 have been selected for two days of presentations and workshops in the city, PA reported on 22 October, and the winning entries will each receive US$2,000 to develop and put their ideas into practice.

The teams emerged from the I CAN Earthshot Challenge, which the Earthshot Prize launched in June with the Brazilian children's rights foundation Alana and the education movement Design for Change. The challenge was opened to students through more than 15,000 schools in 24 Indian states, with organisers aiming to reach close to one million children, which the Earthshot Prize describes as the largest youth outreach in its history. Children could also enter online from anywhere in the country.

Rather than writing essays, students worked in teams to find a real environmental problem in their own community and tackle it. Each project had to link to one of the prize's five Earthshots: protecting and restoring nature, cleaning the air, reviving the oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing the climate. Teams followed Design for Change's Feel, Imagine, Do and Share approach, and teachers in participating schools were supported along the way. According to PA, entries ranged from fixing a waterlogged school playground to tackling oil and solid-waste pollution in the Godavari River.

Five winners, one for each Earthshot, will receive the grants. The young finalists will join the wider Earthshot Prize Summit and Awards Night on 16 and 17 November, the first time the awards have been held in India. The ceremony will hand out £5 million in total, with £1 million going to each of five winners, and will be streamed on Prime Video. This year's finalists include the Danish offshore wind developer Orsted, Mahindra Last Mile Mobility, which makes electric three-wheelers in India, and Yellowstone to Yukon, which works to reconnect wildlife habitat across Canada and the United States.

Earthshot chief executive Jason Knauf said the next generation "is not waiting for the future to act". Kiran Bir Sethi, founder of Design for Change, said children have an incredible capacity to create change when given the opportunity to act.

The choice of India is significant for the prize. The country has produced more Earthshot winners and finalists than any other, with seven finalists to date, four of them winners. It also faces some of the sharpest environmental pressures in the world, from air pollution in its large cities to water stress and extreme heat, which gives local, practical projects a direct relevance to daily life.

The Children's Earthshot builds on a pilot run in Brazil in 2025, when young people took part in a youth simulation of UN climate negotiations ahead of the prize's Rio de Janeiro edition. Moving from simulated negotiations to hands-on projects in schools marks a shift towards learning by doing, with children testing ideas in their own streets, rivers and classrooms rather than only discussing them.

Why it matters

Young people will live longest with the consequences of today's climate decisions, yet they rarely get a seat at the table. Putting schoolchildren on the same stage as global innovators and investors, even briefly, signals that their ideas count and builds the next generation of environmental leaders.