Sarah Ingham is author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
The latest twist in the long-running royal soap overshadowed the King’s speech to COP28: His Majesty should be grateful.
Having dealt themselves out of their very own Game of Thrones almost four years ago, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been trying simultaneously to upstage and undermine the monarchy ever since.
The outing of the alleged “royal racists” (HM the King and HRH the Princess of Wales), which the Duchess claimed in her interview with Oprah Winfrey would be “very damaging to them”, has in fact backfired on the Sussexes.
Race baiting is unpleasant at the best of times, but in our era of divisive identity politics is particularly ugly. Since their cosy heart-to-heart with the American talk show doyenne in March 2021, the Count of Montecito and his wife could have unequivocally set the record straight.
Instead, they chose to continue not only to smear all the members of the Royal Family by innuendo but also to damage the Crown.
Like most of us, Bob Seely has had enough of the Sussex BS from CA. The MP for the Isle of Wight plans to present a bill to Parliament to remove their royal titles, not least because of their track record of “incendiary and unproven allegations”. As he observed: “They should not keep the titles and privileges if they trash an institution that plays an important part in our nation’s life.”
The Crown is indeed central not only to national life but to the constitution and the Commonwealth. As a symbol of national unity, it is, or is supposed to be, above politics.
Consequently, it should not be involving itself in the very political issue of climate change.
King Charles’ commitment to the environment and sustainability is longstanding. In 1970, as the 21-year-old Prince of Wales, he inaugurated the Countryside Award, identifying the problem of plastic waste. While many at the time considered his concern “rather dotty”, he has long since been vindicated. He also drew attention to pollution in the air, seas and waterways.
His Majesty’s home, Highgrove, and its 15 acres of gardens, reflect his green approach. Among the features are a wildflower meadow, biomass boilers, ground and air source heat pumps, natural pest control, willow ramps as escape routes for wildlife from ponds, and a reed-bed sewage system. He says this innovation was thought “completely mad”.
Whether championing organic farming or biodiversity, rare breeds or recycling, the King has been a pioneering visionary, decades ahead of his time. He was green when the Greens were still the People pressure group and yet to evolve into the Ecology Party. As Prince William told the Coronation party last year: “He warned us of risks to our planet’s health long before it was an everyday issue.”
No one can accuse the King of not walking the walk on the environment – often with a traditional shepherd’s crook. Few can be as knowledgeable about the British countryside. The lead he has given has been admirable.
Surely therefore he has earned the right for his warnings to be heeded about “the existential threats facing us over global warming, over climate change and biodiversity loss” – as he told the COP28 climate conference last week?
This is an understandable view. But it fails to account for how environmental politics has evolved over the decades.
In 1961, the first in a chain of vegetarian restaurants opened in London’s Carnaby Street. Acknowledging that going meat-free was eccentric, it was called Cranks. The World Wildlife Fund, with its giant panda logo, was set up the same year to save species and their habitats.
Earthrise, the photograph taken by the crew of Apollo 8 underlined the fragility of the planet. In the early 1970s, eco-awareness and green activism started to become mainstream. Greenpeace sailed to stop nuclear testing in the northern Pacific and Doomwatch, a BBC series watched by millions every week, played on fears that science and technology could be beyond humanity’s control. More prosaically, the Heath Government set up the Department of the Environment.
Today, eco-enthusiasm goes far beyond hugging trees or talking to plants. It is dominated by climate change and attempts to mitigate it. By signing up to the Paris Accords in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5C degrees above pre-industrial levels, governments agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, chiefly by switching to renewable energy.
A Net Zero Carbon future is hardly cost-free. The King told COP28 delegates on Friday that $4.5-5 trillion (that’s $5 million million) a year needs to be mobilised.
Apparently absent from the royal radar is the concept of “opportunity costs” (such as instead investing in girls’ education, a priority for the World Bank). His Majesty also seems unaware that in the pursuit of Net Zero, his British subjects are expected to make radical and unpopular lifestyle changes. These days, an eco-sensibility isn’t confined to concern about polar bears: it’s politics.
Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, told COP: “The science is clear: The 1.5C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.” Out go our petrol engines, along with our gas boilers.
Along with offering stringent limits to legal and illegal immigration, the political party which dumps the demand that we all install heat pumps and drive electric cars probably has next year’s general election in the (vegan leather) bag, particularly if it also undertakes to see off the destructive and disruptive eco-loons of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil.
Conservatives are supposed to support the free market. We should be asking ourselves how popular EVs and renewable central heating would be with individual consumers without taxpayer subsidies.
For Rishi Sunak last week to cancel a meeting with the Greek prime minister was maladroit; for the King seemingly to comment on the matter via his tie was poor advice. But for His Majesty to venture onto the political – and still contested – ground of climate change was worse.
As the King’s younger son can tell him, the public’s goodwill should never be taken for granted.