Why William And Kate Are Looking To America For Next Year's Earthshot Awards

Following the inaugural Earthshot Prize ceremony held in London on Sunday, October 17, 2021, Prince William and Kate Middleton reportedly have big plans for the future of the initiative. As the BBC reported, the annual awards were overseen by the Duke of Cambridge and prizes were handed out to ambitious individuals and projects with ideas that could help save the planet.

Joining William and Kate at the first-ever Earthshot Prize ceremony at Alexandra Palace were a string of A-list guests, including the likes of Emma Watson and Dame Emma Thompson, who watched on as the duke's five winners were announced and awarded £1 million each.

The five winners of the 2021 Earthshot Prize include the Republic of Costa Rica for helping to protect and restore nature, the Takachar technology in India for cleaning the planet's air, the Coral Vita project based in the Bahamas for reviving the world's oceans, the city of Milan's food waste hubs for helping to build a waste-free world, and the AEM Electrolyser curated in Thailand, Germany, and Italy for helping to fix the Earth's climate.

According to Vanity Fair, this year's winners weren't the only exciting announcements to be made at the London ceremony, as William also revealed that next year's Earthshot Prize will be held in the United States. 

According to a royal insider close to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the future king and queen are "very focused on America" and plan to make sure they "have a high profile over there." The source continued, "The possibility of them making a high profile visit is very much on the cards for next year," (via Vanity Fair). 

The insider also claimed that William, Kate, and their staff were very aware of the fallout of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, and they hope to win back some of their popularity in the United States. "[They] are aware that their popularity took a bit of a dive post the Oprah interview, and that the focus now is on getting that support back. America is a very important audience for them," the source concluded. 

Per the BBC, William's Earthshot Prize already has strong links to the United States and is inspired by former president John F. Kennedy's ambitious Moonshot project in the 1960s, which aimed to get a man on the Moon within 10 years.