How to remain apolitical in an age of climate catastrophe? The royals are doing their level best. As Australia’s months-long bushfires claimed their 23rd victim, the country’s head of state, the Queen, sent her “thoughts and prayers” to her choking subjects, saying she was “deeply saddened” by the “devastating” news.

Ever the edgiest of the family, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spiced up their milquetoast condolences with a condemnation of the “global environmental crisis” – of which the bushfires are a flagrant symptom – as “ecocide”. They stopped short, however, of naming its perpetrators.

“We are struck,” the royal couple observed in their Instagram post, “by the increasingly overlapping presence of these environmental disasters, including of course the destruction of the Amazon which continues.” Yes, but destruction by whom?

Cue the Cambridges’ own anodyne intervention into our impending apocalypse. On New Year’s Eve, William and Kate announced the start of their “decade of action to repair the earth”. Each year from 2021 to 2030 – by which point, of course, it will be too late to stop catastrophic climate change – the pair will award an indeterminate sum, provided by unnamed philanthropists, to the creators of a new eco-friendly invention.

The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Show all 12 1 /12 The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Selena Gomez To her 164 million fans, the 27-year-old pop star wrote that she is “absolutely devastated” by the fires and pledged a donation to Celeste Barber’s fundraiser. “Absolutely devastated by the fires in Australia,” she wrote. “Praying for everyone affected and all of the first responders. I'm making a donation and would love if you would consider doing the same if you can.” Getty Images The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Hugh Jackman Hugh Jackman, a native Australian, shared a message along with a photo of a firefighter in the midst of the bushfires. “We want to express our deep gratitude to the people in Australia who are fighting these devastating bushfires. Our hearts are with everyone impacted especially those who have lost homes businesses and loved ones,” the Logan actor wrote. “This is an immense tragedy for our home country.” Getty Images The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban Hollywood star Nicole Kidman and her husband, country singer Keith Urban, pledged $500,000. Speaking to Studio 10's Angela Bishop in Los Angeles on Sunday, Kidman said her family are “devastated for Australia” and had pledged the money to help support those tackling the fires. Urban also announced the couple's generous donation via Twitter, writing: “Our family’s support, thoughts, and prayers are with everyone affected by the fires all over Australia. “We are donating $500,000 to the Rural Fire Services who are all doing and giving so much right now,” he added. Getty Images The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Pink Pink shared links to local state fire services in Australia where her Twitter followers could donate. The 40-year-old pop star said she is “totally devastated” and pledged a donation of $500,000. The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Dacre Montgomery Australian actor and Stranger Things star Dacre Montgomery made an emotional video pleading for people to help in any way they could. “Australia is in dire need of your help,” he said. “There are so many communities on fire right now, half a billion animals have died and we've lost an area the size of Belgium to wildfires.” Getty Images for MTV The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Kylie Minogue The pop star, whose advert encouraging Brits to visit Australia was recently pulled, has donated half a million dollars to help tackle the fires. “Last year I had the incredible opportunity of visiting some of the many beautiful places in my homeland for the first time,” she said in an Instagram post. “Returning home to such devastation throughout much of the country is heartbreaking. “As a family, we’ve donated $500,000 towards the immediate firefighting efforts and the ongoing support which will be required. “Big or small, from near or far, any support will help those affected by the devastating bushfires.” Getty The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Russell Crowe Russell Crowe used his Golden Globe win to highlight the “tragedy unfolding” as bushfires continue to ravish Australia. The New Zealand-born star, who has lived most of his life in Australia, won Best Actor for the Showtime series The Loudest Voice. However, he missed the event, choosing instead to stay at home to help fight the fires. In a video shared to his Twitter page, Crowe showed the details of his truck for “when things get crazy”, containing a water tank, fire blankets, spare hoses and other firefighting equipment, along with his shiny Golden Globe on the seat inside the vehicle. Making a statement on his behalf at the ceremony, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon said: “Make no mistake, the tragedy unfolding in Australia is climate-change based.” Russell Crowe. Credit: Getty The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Phoebe Waller-Bridge The Fleabag star, who won the award for Best Actress in a comedy or musical television series, is said to have made the announcement backstage that she will auction the outfit she wore to the ceremony. “Backstage: Phoebe Waller-Bridge says she is auctioning off her Ralph & Russo #GoldenGlobes suit to raise money for the Australia wildfires,” reporter Andrea Mandell tweeted. She added that Waller-Bridge said: “The money that is raised will go towards relief in Australia.” Getty The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Cate Blanchett Blanchett, who was presenting an award at this year’s Golden Globes, used her speech to give thanks to volunteer firefighters, and draw attention to the global “climate disaster”. “There are a lot of Australians in the room tonight,” she said. “I know we are all very grateful for the call-outs to our fellow compatriots who are suffering under the bushfires, so thank you. “I wanted to do a special call-out to the volunteer firefighters who have been at the centre of battling the climate disaster that is facing Australia. “And of course, when one country faces a climate disaster, we all face a climate disaster, so we’re in it together, so thank you very much.” 2020 NBCUniversal Media, LLC via The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Patricia Arquette Arquette won best supporting actress in a series, limited series or TV movie for her role in Hulu series The Act at the Golden Globes. “I am so happy to be here and celebrate this, but also I know that … we see a country on the brink of war, the United States of America … and the continent of Australia on fire,” she said. “While I love my kids so much, I beg of us all to give them a better world. For our kids and their kids, we have to vote in 2020 and beg and plead for everyone we know to vote in 2020.” Getty Images The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Sharon Stone Sharon Stone re-posted a photo shared by climate crisis activist Greta Thunberg on her Instagram page. "My heartfelt prayers for relief from the fires in Australia," Stone wrote alongside a photo of a kangaroo in front of a destroyed home. Getty The celebrities pledging to support Australia as it battles wildfires Rebel Wilson “It's obviously a weird time in Australia, and last night we were having dinner just thinking about everybody with the bushfires and how we can help,” she said. “I was just on a group text chat this morning with some other Aussie actors about what we can do for the bushfire situation because it's so overwhelming and so devastating and so our thoughts are kind of with that. ”Thinking of all those firefighters out there, it's just, my heart goes out to everyone.“ AFP/Getty Images

The so-called Earthshot Prize sets its sights as high as the moon mission from which it takes its title. “The most prestigious environment prize in history,” the Earthshot reflects “a massive level of ambition” on behalf of the royals. The palace proclaimed it as “the biggest commitment the Duke has ever made”. Bigger, some might say, than the commitment he made to his wife.

Like their Sussex siblings, the Cambridges choose not to fixate misanthropically on the baddies of the climate emergency, instead philanthropically cheering on the good guys. As the earth teeters on the edge of a manmade abyss, the Duke called upon the public to “remember our unique power as human beings and our continual ability to lead, innovate and problem solve”.

In days as dark as these, it is hard to refuse his optimism. While Extinction Rebellion have proven grief a powerful spur to climate action, joy will be just as essential if we are to build a better world from the wreckage. Plus by keeping things upbeat and eschewing apportioning blame, one handily avoids being ensnared in the political weeds.

Yet as Thea Riofrancos, Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni and Daniel Aldana Cohen write in A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, “In the 21st century, all politics are climate politics.” I’d add to this that in the 21st century, all climate matters are political – and that every response to the climate crisis bespeaks an ideology.

The royals’ ideology is hidden in plain sight. For just like the Apollo moon landings, Earthshot is an attempt to prove the superiority of capitalism (in this case, the profit motive) to provide technological solutions to mankind’s greatest problems.

“The most contentious dichotomy of all” within ideological responses to the climate crisis, insist the authors of A Planet to Win, is “growth or degrowth”. Earthshot sits firmly in the former camp, subscribing to the same logic that compels us to buy eco-fashion and offset our carbon, rather than buy fewer clothes and take fewer flights – that the solution to our ecocidal gluttony is more, more, more; that we can rescue the planet without radically altering our lifestyles, and certainly without sacrificing our luxuries. Needless to say, this isn’t a neutral logic – it’s the logic of business.

It is no surprise, then, that the prize the Earthshot most closely resembles is Virgin’s Earth Challenge, a $25bn (£19bn) fund created by Richard Branson in 2007 to develop innovative techniques for carbon removal. Nor is it surprising that the other recent royal foray into environmental activism, Travelyst, is a souped-up corporate social responsibility initiative to greenwash the travel sector.

Yet this method of letting capitalism clear up its own mess, tempting as it appears, is illusory. Again and again, argues Naomi Klein in This Changes Everything: Capitalism v The Climate, billionaires have “set out to harness the profit motive to solve the crisis, but again and again, the demands of building a successful empire trumped the climate imperative”.

From Branson to Bloomberg, Bill Clinton to Gates, her book is a catalogue of “billionaires who were going to invent a new form of enlightened capitalism but decided, on second thoughts, that the old one was just too profitable to surrender”.

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Of course, it’s not coincidental that business and royalty are taking a similar, and similarly fruitless, tack. For as A Planet to Win projects, “it’s the rich who will bear the brunt of climate sacrifice”. The royals don’t favour environmental edge-tinkering out of a commitment to neutrality, but because the kinds of structural change that might actually save our planet would write them out of history.