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"People can achieve great things. And the next 10 years presents us with one of our greatest tests - a decade of change to repair the Earth."
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While Prince William and his father, Prince Charles, have long campaigned on environmental awareness, the blunt language used to reveal the first details of the so-called Earthshot Prize is rare for such senior members of the royal family.
The Earthshot Prize will aim to uncover solutions to climate change across all parts of industry and society,
Drawing comparisons to the Nobel Peace Prize, multimillion-pound prizes will be awarded to five winners a year over 10 years. Recipients could include scientists, activists, economists, political leaders, governments, banks, businesses, cities and even countries.
The prize were announced as a bushfire emergency gripping New South Wales and Victoria dominated news in the UK, leading all major television and radio bulletins just as Tourism Australia seeks to lure Brexit-fatigued Brits to Australia through a flashy new advertising campaign fronted by Kylie Minogue.
The Duke of Cambridge enlisted renowned environmentalist Sir David Attenborough to help launch the campaign just as the world rang in a new year.
In a video endorsing the project, Attenborough warned the world could "no longer take life as we know it for granted".
"But humans have an extraordinary power to solve the greatest of challenges. The most audacious of them all: to land a man on the moon. The Moonshot, a seemingly impossible task that over a single decade became a reality and along the way united the world," he said.
The Queen used her traditional Christmas Day broadcast to say she had been struck by the "sense of purpose" younger generations had shown in tackling issues like climate change.
"The challenges many people face today may be different to those once faced by my generation, but I have been struck by how new generations have brought a similar sense of purpose to issues such as protecting our environment and our climate," she said.