Princess Eugenie has said that her son August will be an “activist” for climate change from the age of two during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The royal, who is the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York, said that becoming a mother has “totally changed” her view on the environment and the decisions her family makes in their household.
Eugenie, 32, gave birth to August Philip Hawke Brooksbank on 9 February 2021. She shares her son with husband Jack Brooksbank, who she married in 2018.
In a video of the interview published by Reuters, Eugenie said: “My son is going to be an activist from two years old, which is in a couple of days. Everything is for them.
“I talked to Peter Thomson, the UN Special Envoy for Oceans, and all he says to me is that I do this for my grandchildren. And that’s the same.
“Every decision we now make has to be for August, what he’s going to be able to look at and do, and how he’s going to live his life.”
Eugenie also reflected on how becoming a mother has changed her life, including her fears.
“As a mother, you, all of a sudden, totally change, your hormones change, everything changes,” she said. “Like, now I’m scared of flying and things like that, and I would never be before.”
She revealed that her family tries “as much as possible” to ditch plastic from their home and she is trying to teach August to live plastic-free, but admitted: “It’s a battle.”
Last year, Eugenie announced the launch of her anti-slavery charity’s new podcast, Floodlight, which she co-hosts with her co-founder, Julia de Boinville.
Eugenie and Boinville created the Anti-Slavery Collective in 2017 after going on a trip to an organisation called the Women’s Interlink Foundation in Kolkata, India, in 2012.
Speaking to Reuters editor Axel Threlfall and Arctic Humanity founder Gail Whiteman in Davos, she highlighted how climate change has impacted vulnerable communities across the world and goes “hand in hand” with modern slavery.
“There are 49 million people estimated in slavery today and we know that when the climate is vulnerable, the most vulnerable people are affected by it,” she said.
“We’re going to see that more and more, each time there’s a crisis happening, that people are going to be vulnerable and taken into difficult situations.
“So climate goes hand in hand with it really.”
Eugenie’s comments come after her cousin, the Duke of Sussex, opened up about how becoming a father made him galvanise his efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
In 2020, Prince Harry said he worries about leaving children with a world that is “on fire” while voicing his support for the WaterBear Network, a streaming platform for climate and nature documentaries.
He said: “The moment you become a father, everything really does change. You start to realise, what is the point f bringing a new person into this world, if they get to your age and it’s on fire?
“We can’t steal their future. I’ve always believed that, hopefully, we can leave the world in a better place than when we found it.
“We really need to take a moment and think, how do we get what we need and have our desire fulfilled without taking from our children and generations to come?”
