All the times Prince Charles has spoken about his love for the environment

Prince Charles has always been ahead of the crowd when it comes to environmental awareness. For decades, the duke was advocating on behalf of Mother Nature, warning the world of climate change well before it was the widely-known concept it is today.

He passed along his passion to his sons, Princes William and Harry, encouraging them to care for nature from a young age. From teaching his children to pick up litter to allowing red squirrels to roam around his country home, the future King counts environmentalism as one of his biggest priorities.

Click through all the times the Prince of Wales has spoken out about the environment...

Photo: © Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Charles's love for the environment goes way back. As he was heading back for his second year at Cambridge in 1968, he said: “I cannot tell you how much I miss Balmoral and the hills and the air – I feel very empty and incomplete without it all.”

Photo: © Jeremy Fletcher/Getty Images

Even back in 1986, Prince Charles considered himself a lover of nature.

In a television interview about gardening, he said: “I just come and talk to the plants, really – very important to talk to them, they respond I find.”

Photo: © Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool/Getty Images

While addressing delegates at the Saving the Ozone Layer World Conference in 1989, he said: “Since the Industrial Revolution, human beings have been upsetting that balance [of nature], persistently choosing short-term options and to hell with the long-term repercussions.”

Photo: © Tim Graham/Getty Images

The Prince of Wales received the 10th Global Environmental Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment back in 2007. As such, he addressed the crowd with an inspiring – and, at times, funny! – speech about the importance of protecting the earth.

He began by talking about his film Earth in Balance, which he compared to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth – both films focused on the effects of climate change.

“I made that film because of my personal and profound sense of unease, which even then dated back almost 20 years, about the way that we, as mankind, were treating the environment on which we all ultimately depend,” he said. “Since then, of course, every passing year has seen further evidence emerge of the damage we are doing to this poor old planet the only one we’ve got that sustains life in such a miraculous and well- ordered way.”

The rest of his speech can be read here.

Photo: © Pool/Anwar Hussein/Getty Images

At the Paris summit in December 2011, Prince Charles declared there's no plan B for climate change without forests.

“It is very simple: we must save our forests,” he said, pointing out humanity faces “critical challenges... without them.”

The crowd included Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden.

The rest of his speech can be read here.

Photo: © Carl Court/Getty Images

The prince spoke at the Copenhagen climate change conference back in 2009, asking the audience to consider what they could do to make the world more liveable.

“Take a moment to consider the opportunities if we succeed,” he said. “Imagine a healthier, safer and more sustainable, economically robust world. Because if we share in that vision, we can share the will to action that is now required.” “The conclusion I draw is that the future of mankind can be assured only if we rediscover ways in which to live as a part of nature, not apart from her,” he continued.

The rest of his address can be read here.

Photo: © ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images

During the Our Ocean conference with the European Union in 2017, Charles called catastrophic hurricanes a direct consequence of climate change.

“If the unprecedented ferocity of recent catastrophic hurricanes is not the supreme wake-up call that it needs to be, to address the vast and accumulating threat of climate change and ocean warming, then we – let alone the global insurance and financial sectors – can surely no longer consider ourselves part of a rational, sensible civilization,” he said to the crowd.

At the conference, it was announced the EU would devote more than US$820 million to protecting oceans with over 30 initiatives.

“While we should be relieved that the health of the ocean is now understood, alongside rainforests, to be one of the essential prerequisites for our physical and economic survival, I wonder if the ocean’s fragility is yet truly grasped and how susceptible it is to the impacts of our economic activities,” he continued. “We must never mistake [the oceans] for a new frontier for endless economic exploitation.”

Photo: © Matthew Mirabelli

Prince Charles commended young people for fighting for environmental change while he and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall were in the Caribbean in March.

During his last day on the royal tour, he said young people deserve action to help them out of an “appalling crisis” caused by “potentially catastrophic global warming.” He also said: “We demand the world’s decision makers take responsibility and solve this crisis.”

Photo: © Chris Jackson/Getty Images

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2020, Charles meet 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg and gave a passionate speech about climate change.

"Do we want to go down in history as the people who did nothing to bring the world back from the brink in time to restore the balance when we could have done? I don't want to," he said.

The Prince of Wales also used the conference to announce his new Sustainable Markets initiative, which urges businesses to put the Earth first in how they operate.