Sustainability Why King Charles III Is Not Going To Cop27 Heather Farmbrough Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Journalist, editor, author and conference moderator Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Oct 30, 2022, 06:51pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – NOVEMBER 01: King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, speaks during the opening .
. . [+] ceremony of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow.
Getty Images The Prince will not be going to the party, but he’s going to have his own one, first. A controversy has arisen over the new British government’s recommendation that King Charles III should not attend Cop27, the UN climate conference, in Sharm el-Sheikh next week. The former prime minister Liz Truss had asked the king not to attend the talks, and her successor, Rishi Sunak, has left that request in place.
The monarch is passionate about the climate emergency but, according to Downing Street, it was “unanimously agreed” by Buckingham Palace and the government that the king would not attend Cop27. Instead, the King is hosting his own reception for leaders at Buckingham Palace ahead of the event, to signal support. Charles, who spoke at the opening ceremony for last year’s Cop26 summit in Glasgow, where he represented the Queen, has been speaking out publicly on environmental issues since at least 1968 .
Since becoming King, he has been constrained from making his own views known but the environment is said to remain close to his heart. The Telegraph has reported that the King will still champion the environment, choosing to ‘highlight’ rather than ‘campaign’ for protecting the natural world, as a concession to his neutral role. MORE FOR YOU The ‘Backsies’ Billionaire: Texan Builds Second Fortune From Wreckage Of Real Estate Empire He’d Sold Eric André Sues Police For Racial Profiling, Seizing Cash At Atlanta Airport Death Eaters Have Overtaken Universal Hollywood’s Wizarding World Of Harry Potter In an interview on Times Radio this weekend, Sir Tim Smit, Co-Founder of the Eden Project in Cornwall, who has worked closely with King Charles III on a number of ventures, said, “I really hope that on reflection, there might be some reconsideration.
” Many Brits are asking why the King should not attend a conference about climate change, which is arguably an environmental rather than political issue. It seems the government sees Cop27 precisely as a political issue. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s new government is dialling back on climate change.
Sunak is not going to Cop27. Nor is his new climate change minister. Moreover, Sunak has removed Alok Sharma, the president of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, from office.
Smit suggested an intriguing reason why the new King might have been discouraged from attending Cop 27 was that his charismatic and influential personality might overshadow the official British delegation. If so, another charismatic personality may do that anyway: the former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson , has signalled he intends to attend. King and Prime Minister: a difference of priority PA Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn .
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From: forbes
URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherfarmbrough/2022/10/30/p-charles/