Liz Truss will reportedly now attend the Cop 27 climate summit in Egypt next month.
The prime minister is set to stop off in Egypt as part of her travel plans to attend the G20 international summit in Bali in November, according to a report in The Sun.
It comes afterThe Sunday Times reported that Ms Truss was unlikely to attend the climate summit herself and had told King Charles to abandon his plans to attend. The paper reported that the King had wanted to give a speech at the conference but that Ms Truss had intervened.
Then on Tuesday, a cabinet minister urged Ms Truss to attend next month’s vital summit and to allow Charles to do so too.
Number 10 said on Wednesday it would confirm any travel plans nearer the time. Buckingham Palace confirmed to The Independent this weekend that Charles will not attend the conference.The Independent has contacted Buckingham Palace to confirm if the King is still planning not to attend and if any other members of the royal family will do so.
It would be normal practice for Charles to seek Ms Truss’s guidance on whether to go to Cop27, a royal source told The Independent on Saturday, highlighting that any suggestion that Charles’ attendance to the summit is a point of disagreement with Ms Truss is untrue.
Charles is a committed environmentalist who has spent decades advocating for sustainability, organic farming and the importance of tackling the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. The summit in Egypt aims to translate many of the pledges made in Glasgow to tackle global heating into action and to make progress on issues including loss and damage experienced by developing countries on the frontline of the climate crisis.
Speaking at Cop 26 in Glasgow last year he told world leaders that countries need to engage in a “war-like footing” to tackle the climate crisis, with a “military-style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector.”
But on assuming the throne last month, there were questions about how and to what extent the King’s environmental commitment could manifest itself under his new stricter constitutional role.
Addressing the nation following the death of his mother, Charles said he knew it would “no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energies to the charities and issues for which I care so deeply.”
The late Queen Elizabeth II addressed the climate summit in Glasgow last year. In her speech, she said many people hoped that the “time for words has now moved to the time for action”.
