Prince William issues 'urgent' warning at Earthshot Prize after Kate photo row

11 March 2024 , 20:16

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The Prince of Wales attending the Earthshot Prize awards in central London (Image: PA)

Prince William put questions over Princess Kate's photoshopped Mother's Day post behind him tonight to issue an urgent statement on the environment.

The 41-year-old Prince attended the Earthshot Prize launch event - his environmental competition brainchild - in London this evening (Monday March 11). During the event - which was a launch for an online platform designed to connect innovators with investors - he told the audience that it was humanity's "urgent" responsibility to set the planet of a healthier path. An impassioned Prince said "we are in the critical decade now".

He said: "When I first started thinking about how I might contribute to the collective global effort to protect our planet in 2018, I knew that I wanted to mobilise the enormous power of innovators, wherever they are in the world. From businesses, cities and governments; to activists, scientists and innovators, the ideas and ambition to set our planet on a healthier path do already exist. But this is urgent. We are in the critical decade now.

The photo in question (PA)

"And that is why, to have real impact, we must focus on supporting and developing as many solutions as possible and scale them at speed", he added. "It is not an easy task. We must overcome the challenge of getting capital to the right sectors, solutions, and geographies." After the speech, William introduced the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern.

It comes as Kensington Palace is still reeling after Princess Kate shared an image of her and her three children on Mother's Day in an image that was clearly manipulated. The Associated Press (AP) Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Getty Images all separately issued a "kill notice" to media organisations around the globe, in which they confirmed the image had been deleted from their libraries. The UK Press Association did the same until they had further information from Kensington Palace.

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The Prince didn't mention the photo row during the ceremony (PA)

The Prince of Wales enters the awards ceremony (Wiktor Szymanowicz/REX/Shutterstock)

The deputy news director of AFP also slammed the shoddy photo editing skills, pointing to a misalignment in Princess Charlotte's hand. ‌Eric Baradat said: “This was done a bit fast by all of us, all the agencies, just by pure habit and total trust with the material that Kensington Palace is usually sending out. The more you look at the picture, the more you enlarge it, it becomes obvious that it's been manipulated or altered or doctored, or whatever you call it, and really badly so.

“In a way that is really amateur. We joked this morning saying if an intern was doing that at AFP they wouldn't get a job, no chance at all. This is really badly done. It's clearly a red line. I'm in no position to comment on what was added or what was erased, I have no idea, I'm not even getting there. We will put out a really strong guideline again for all our editing desks in the world, not to trust the most trustable third party image, because we can fall in that trap very regularly.”

The world's leading news agencies retracted the photograph (KENSINGTON PALACE/AFP via Getty)

This morning in a rare person post on X, signed C denoting it was from Kate, the princess admitted: "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother's Day. C"

Meanwhile a palace source added: "The Princess has shared a statement on social media. This was an amateur, family photograph taken by the Prince of Wales. Their royal highnesses wanted to offer an informal picture of the family together for Mother's Day. The Princess made minor adjustments as she shared in her statement on social media. The Wales family spent Mother’s Day together and had a wonderful day."

The photograph, released yesterday, shows Kate embraced by Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, nine and Prince Louis, five. The image, the palace said, was taken by Prince William and was posted on social media. It was the first official photo of Kate since she had abdominal surgery earlier this year. The 42-year-old future queen had last been pictured in public during a Christmas Day walk in Sandringham, Norfolk.

Ryan Fahey