We’re coming up to “Earthshot Week,” it will be here soon enough. November 7th is the date of the Earthshot Prize ceremony, but William will be in Singapore for four days, spinning his wheels and trying to create “global statesman” photo-ops without ever doing the work of being a global statesman. The Singapore awards will be the first Earthshot Prize ceremony to actually fly the finalists in – in the two previous years, William merely flew in the celebrities. The finalists were only able to, like, Zoom into the ceremony. Well, no worries, because this year, William is still making some celebrities fly in. Cate Blanchett is going to Singapore, as is Hannah Waddingham.

Cate Blanchett has hailed Prince William’s Earthshot Prize awards as “game-changing” as it is revealed she will join him in Singapore. The Oscar-winning actress, 54, will take part by announcing the winners of the prize next month during its third annual awards ceremony.

She said: “The climate solutions showcased by the prize are wildly exciting – exciting because they are so simple, so possible, and so inevitable. The solutions are game-changing, and like all truly game-changing ideas, they have a strange ‘how could we not have thought and implemented this before?!’ quality. I am proud to be a small part of unveiling the winners.”

Blanchett, who has been an Earthshot Council member since the inception of the Prize in 2020, added: “The Earthshot Prize is, again, highlighting and incentivising courageous, progressive, and inventive solutions that can be rapidly upscaled. We don’t have time for inaction and despair, and the incredible climate solutions from around the globe are cause for genuine hope.”

She will be joined in announcing the winners at the event by Robert Irwin, the son of the late Australian conservationist Steve Irwin, as well as actress Lana Condor and South African actress and humanitarian Nomzamo Mbatha. The awards ceremony will also feature performances by the pop bands Bastille and OneRepublic, as well as the Singaporean choral society, Voices of Singapore.

Meanwhile, the Emmy-award winning Ted Lasso actress Hannah Waddingham has been announced as the host of the evening, saying she will spotlight the stories and solutions of this year’s cohort of 15 finalists.

[From The Telegraph]

I love Hannah but I get the feeling that she goes to the opening of an envelope, and she was probably just happy to book a gig as MC of some awards show. Cate Blanchett though… well, I appreciate that she’s talking about the actual awards and the innovators and not acting like it’s The William Show.

With all of this talk about some glitzy awards show with celebrities being flown into Singapore for William’s busy-work, I’m reminded of the financial disclosures from the Royal Foundation. Remember this? The Royal Foundation spent £12.1 million on Earthshot in 2021, and only “£5 million” of that was prize money. William blew through £7.1 million of donor money to throw himself a party and embiggen himself.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.