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The Prince of Wales has told young people that he does not want to "tell them what to do" when it comes to saving the planet. Prince William , speaking to young leaders on a programme for his Earthshot Prize, said he would not be lecturing them but wanted to hear their ideas instead. In a session at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro , he said he wanted to harness their "courage and passion" to persuade business leaders to invest in the sector and hold the older generation's "feet to the fire". He was joined by footballer Cafu for the session, with the Prince - a keen football fan - looking overawed to be in the stadium. As he stepped out onto a balcony overlooking the pitch, he gazed around him before spotting Cafu waiting for him. "It's an honour," he told him. "We've all seen how your feet work." As Cafu spoke to him via a translator, the Prince called himself a "football fan" but "not an athlete", asking the Brazilian if he had heard of the team he supports, Aston Villa . He also asked Cafu about the next generation of players moving through the Brazilian system, saying there are "big names playing incredible football". Cafu presented Prince William with a Brazil shirt with his name [Cafu] on it, hand signed a few minutes before William arrived. The Prince and the footballer then went inside the stadium to meet 75 members of the "Generation Earthshot" cohort, who are a three-day programme running alongside the Earthshot Prize. The session is designed to bring together 18-30 year old future leaders to give the next generation "the space to share their journeys, learn from each other, and define the legacy they want to leave". They are joined by 17 "mini COPs" aged 11 - 16. This year, the Generation Earthshot leaders include 25 young people from Asia and South Africa and 50 from Brazil, invited to represent key ecological zones across the country from the Amazon and Cerrado to the Atlantic Forest. The Prince spent time on four tables, listening to young people from different parts of the world working on solutions to climate change. He asked them what they needed more help with and how the prize could support them better, joking they must "give my team a hard time, they love it". He told one young woman from South Africa, who told him she had become "angry" at the lack of environmental action in her home region, that it was "good to hear" she had channelled her frustration into action. He praised others for their courage to work in the sector, asking if it was "quite a lonely place" in comparison to jobs elsewhere. William also insisted on staying at each table until he had spoken to everyone. "All of you are doing fantastic work and I want to thank you for your bravery and courage. We need brilliant, courageous young leaders like yourselves. We're here to give you any support you need, and you're going to be the future," he said. He told one group that he wanted them to become "household names" for their inventions. Thanked for being there, he joked he was a "distraction from all the good things you're doing". "What I don't want to do is tell any of you what to do," he said. "It's not my Earthshot, it's your Earthshot. It's a platform for you guys to get bigger and better. That's what I hope will be our legacy." The Prince also said that he worried about "environmental anxiety" in the younger generation, saying there were "enough worries in the world" without putting another burden on them. He spoke passionately about the need to find leadership in the private sector, warning that CEOs were all waiting for others to take the leap into proper investment in the sustainability sector. "We need a bit of courage in the system," he said. "Where are the CEOs taking the lead with this? There is a nervousness. We have to get the confidence, we have to get the passion. Without that, we're all wobbling around a little bit." Asked for his advice, he told young people to build their ideas physically rather than trying to explain them. "If there's too much talking, they can't see it," he said. "They need to be able to see it and touch it and feel it. If it's just words, they don't get it." The Earthshot Prize is designed to come up with practical solutions to environmental problems, rewarding inventors and pioneers.
