LONDON. Surprisingly, re Carlo III she will not be at COP27 for a very simple reason: the first British minister Liz Truss opposed, indeed, formally advised him not to attend the UN climate summit scheduled for Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt, next November. Yet the new monarch, fervent and passionate environmentalist of the first hour, had been invited and would have liked to be there, as he did last year at Glasgow per la Cop26. For the occasion, he even invited the envoy for the American climate John Kerry at his Clarence House residence.
There are no official reasons for the reverse, which took place after a private interview between Charles and Truss a few days ago: Buckingham Palace only says that “it is no mystery that the king would have liked to have been at Cop27. But he had to reflect on the opportunities of his first trip abroad and in the end it was decided that he will not be ”at the climate summit. Charles III, as Prince of Wales, two years ago also launched the environmental project “Terra Carta”, and reiterated his commitment against climate change also during the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II last summer.
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Of course, times have changed. If Boris Johnson had focused heavily on the green revolution to make the United Kingdom “the Saudi Arabia of the wind”, Truss is much more skeptical about environmentalism. In fact, the new Prime Minister has put pen to paper that the goal of zero emissions by 2050 it is not a priority right now. And during the campaign to become Prime Minister she repeatedly expressed ambiguous phrases such as “I want the British to use cars more” and “why all these solar panels in agricultural fields where we can produce food?”.
If last year the queen had prepared an apolitical video for Cop26, in Downing Street someone feared a step too much of the 73-year-old Charles III, in the past always much more explicit than his mother. So much so that recently, when he was still prince and heir to the throne, the tabloids even criticized the expulsion of irregular migrants to Rwanda, decided by the executive Johnson. Certainly, Carlo’s impartiality still has to be tested. But of course the ruler wants to pursue this goal after his past comments.
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Moreover, the Royal Family has always been closely linked to the foreign policy of the British government and always acts in concert with the Foreign Office or the executive. In addition to the environmental issue, however, the COP27 decision was also influenced by the fact that it would have been Charles III’s first trip abroad. According to what he filters from real sources, the first destination should be there Franceas a gesture of reconciliation after the recent Brexit frictions.