96 Months to Save the World
Prince Charles Gives the World 96 Months to Avert 'Ecosystem Collapse'. Month 97 Arrives on Time.
In his 2009 Richard Dimbleby Lecture, the future King calculated the world had 96 months left. That clock ran out in the summer of 2017.
What was claimed (paraphrase)
Without coherent financial incentives and disincentives, we have just 96 months to avert irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it. (The Independent's summary; 'coherent financial incentives and disincentives' and 'irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it' are his quoted words.)
— Charles, Prince of Wales, now King Charles III (Richard Dimbleby Lecture, as reported by The Independent) · said Jul 2009 · due July 2017 (96 months from July 2009)
Month 96 came and went in mid-2017. No irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse was declared, and the deadline quietly expired.
The fine print
The Independent (published July 8, 2009) reported that Charles told industrialists and environmentalists at St James's Palace he had 'calculated that we have just 96 months left to save the world'. It was a countdown update: in March 2009 the Guardian previewed a Rio de Janeiro speech warning the world had only '100 months to act' before global-warming damage became irreversible. 96 months from July 2009 lands in July 2017.