Prince Charles hopes Ladybird book will win over sceptics

The Prince of Wales has spoken exclusively to Sky News about his new book on climate change, warning that too many people are still unsure about "how urgently we need to take action" and "what might be the consequences if we don't act right away".

Prince Charles hopes the new Ladybird book, which will be available from Thursday, will act as a simple guide to the topic and win over climate change sceptics.

Charles has spoken on environmental issues for over 40 years, making his first speech on the issue in December 1968.

Speaking at Clarence House, the Prince said: "There is still a great deal to do on this very pressing issue, including in relation to public awareness.

"It does rather seem to me that many people are still unsure about climate change in terms of what is really causing it, how urgent it is that we take action, why we must do that and what might be the consequences if we don't act right away."

In the foreword Charles explains how he came up with the idea for the book after the COP21 conference in Paris in 2015, when his friends suggested he should write a "simple plain English guide to the subject".

The 48-page book is in the same style as the iconic children's Ladybird series from the 1960s and '70s. The front cover shows an illustrated picture of flooding in the town of Uckfield in East Sussex, replicating a photo of flooding there in October 2000.

Referring to his own family Charles added: "I suppose in the end the main message is about the need to act to avoid potentially devastating consequences later on, not only for our sakes but those of our children and grandchildren, they after all will in the end pay the biggest price and I hope this little book will enable a few more people to see the troubling situation that we find ourselves in."

The Prince's involvement in the climate change debate has faced criticism in the past with claims it is verging on the political.

The publishers point out that the book was peer reviewed by a group of academics, coordinated by the Royal Meteorological Society, to make sure it was scientifically robust.

It was written in conjunction with Tony Juniper, an environmental campaigner and advisor to Prince Charles, and Dr Emily Shuckburgh, a climate scientist from the British Antarctic Survey.

Mr Juniper told Sky News that the inauguration of President Trump, who has been labelled a climate change denier, has increased the need to make the public aware of the issues.

He said: "I do wonder whether President Trump when he gets the proper briefing, the security briefing, he will see that actually the United States is as vulnerable as everywhere else, in terms of the effects of storms, forest fires, the impact on agriculture and will see that it's in the national interest of the United States, irrespective of his particular views, to take action on this and I do hope that's what he'll be saying come February."

Co-author Emily Shuckburgh said: "I don't think there has ever been a Ladybird book before in the history of ladybird books to have been subject to multiple rounds of peer review, but now we have one, and given the nature of the topic area it was incredibly important to us that we could assure that robustness of the scientific evidence."