1 of 5 | Britain's Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, greet U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry as they attend the second annual Earthshot Prize Awards ceremony at the MGM Music Hall in Boston on Friday. Photo by Brian Snyder/EPA-EFE
Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, ended their three-day trip to the United States on Friday by handing out The Earthshot Prize to five recipients in Boston.
The Earthshot Prize, created in 2020 by Prince William and David Attenborough, awards recipients in five categories with a $1.23 million reward for their efforts in protecting and restoring nature, fighting for cleaner air, reviving the planet's oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing climate change.
The Prince and Princess of Wales arrived for the awards at the MGM Music Hall in Boston just before 5 p.m. before walking down the green carpet, WCVB reported.
The event was filled with fanfare and celebrity appearances, including performances by Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding and Chloe x Halle, with Billie Eilish performing by video.
Attenborough and actor Cate Blanchett narrated videos throughout the event while prizes were presented by actors Rami Malek and Shailene Woodley, as well as comedian Catherine O'Hara.
The awards -- limited to just 50 recipients by 2050 -- were largely inspired by President John F. Kennedy's famous moonshot speech. Prince William met with the former president's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, at the JFK Library in the morning before the event.
The royal was also scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden, which was announced by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Air Force One as the presidential plane traveled to Boston.
"The President looks forward to spending time with Prince William at the JFK Library, where President Biden shared his vision to end cancer as we know it," Jean-Pierre said before their meeting.
"We expect that they will discuss their shared climate goals, prioritization of mental health issues, and decreasing the burden of the disease."
The Earthshot Prize winners announced Friday include the Indian startup Kheyti, a female-founded business in Kenya called Mukuru Clean Stoves, Australia's Indigenous Women of the Great Barrier Reef, the London-based startup Notpla and 44.01 - a company based in the Middle East country of Oman.
According to the Earthshot Prize website, Kheyti was recognized in the Protect and Restore Nature category for developing a Greenhouse-in-a-Box product that was described as a "simple solution that is already having a considerable impact" on 1,000 small farmers around the globe.
Mukuru Clean Stoves was founded by Charlot Magayi in 2017 and is named for one of the largest slums in Nairobi. The company was recognized on the Clean Air category for manufacturing stoves that are fueled by processed biomass made from charcoal, wood and sugarcane -- creating 70% less pollution than traditional cookstoves.
In the Revive Our Oceans category, the Queensland Indigenous Women Rangers Network was recognized for training dozens of women in conservation and the protection of the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea off the coast of Queensland.
Notpla, the winner in the Build A Waste-Free World category, was recognized for manufacturing packaging products that are entirely biodegradable and made from seaweed and plants, as opposed to plastic.
Meanwhile, 44.01 was recognized for its emphasis on permanently mineralizing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in peridotite -- an abundant rock found in Oman and across the world.
"The Prize celebrates groundbreaking solutions to help repair our planet and tonight we have done just that," the Prince and Princess of Wales said in a statement on Twitter.
"Congratulations to all the Winners and Finalists of this year's awards."
