Can Charles III still speak out on climate change?
There's a line from Shakespeare for any situation. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” from his “Henry IV, Part II” is appropriate for King Charles III, as he takes up his long-awaited crown, and in exchange sets down his lifelong passions and causes. There's a real pathos to that transition, especially on subjects such as climate change and the environment, where Charles has been not merely correct, but a generation ahead of the curve.
Long derided by critics as “the meddling prince” for his outspoken advocacy on matters of government policy, Charles now occupies a position in which - under the terms of Britain's unwritten constitution - he is expected to express no opinions at all. Asked during a 2018 BBC documentary whether his habit of speaking his mind would continue once he became king, Charles replied: “No. It won't. I'm not that stupid. I do realize that it is a separate exercise being sovereign.”
Perhaps a headstrong 73-yearold man can radically change his ways. But Charles has been so vocal on so many topics that it is hard to imagine he will have an easy time zipping the royal lip.
Just last November, at the global U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Charles gave a speech calling climate change an “existential threat to the extent that we have to put ourselves on what might be called a war-like footing.” He told the assembled world leaders that “the eyes and hopes of the world are upon you to act with all dispatch and decisively, because time has quite literally run out.” And he called for “radically transforming our current fossil-fuel-based economy to one that is genuinely renewable and sustainable.”
But Prime Minister Liz Truss, who took office just last week, has given oversight of the nation's energy sector to a cabinet secretary who has called environmental activists “the green blob” and spoken in the past of extracting “every last drop” of Britain's North Sea oil. Truss does say she is committed to the goal of having Britain reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but that will require accelerating the transition toward green energy, not slowing it.
Last year, Charles also launched an initiative called
Terra Carta, aimed at focusing the private sector on sustainability. “Deriving its name from the historic Magna Carta, which inspired a belief in the fundamental rights and liberties of people over 800 years ago, the Terra Carta aims to reunite people and planet, by giving fundamental rights and value to Nature, ensuring a lasting impact and tangible legacy for this generation,” the initiative's website says.
It's a perfect example of the ways in which Charles's views on nature sometimes venture into New Age territory - to wags' delight, he once acknowledged talking to plants. But he does try to practice, or at least model, what he preaches.
Nearly 30 years ago, I was among a group of journalists invited to visit Highgrove, his country estate, for a look at how he was implementing his ideas about sustainability. The tour was conducted by aides; Charles was not present. I recall being shown what was described as “the sewage garden,” which fortunately did not look or smell as advertised. We were marched across fields to observe a flock of lambs who were being sustainably raised - and then served delicious lamb chops at a sumptuous, locally sourced luncheon.
The irony of Charles' ascension is that, as king, he has - potentially - a much bigger megaphone to broadcast his plea for respecting and saving the natural world. Yet that platform comes with restrictions: as king, “meddling” would provoke not just critical commentary, but a full-blown constitutional crisis.
Charles cares about other issues, as well. In the eccentricities column, he hates modern architecture, having described an addition to the National Gallery in London as a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.” And he has been criticized by Britain's medical establishment for at times seeming to embrace “holistic” alternative therapies that lack strong evidence of safety and efficacy.
But he also created the Prince's Trust, a charity that has helped more than 1 million low-income young people obtain skills and training. “If it's meddling to worry about the inner cities as I did 40 years ago, then if that's meddling, I'm proud of it,” he told the BBC.
Today, Britain faces the worst inflation crisis among the world's wealthier countries and the pound sterling's value has fallen almost to parity with the dollar. Punishing heat waves this summer left London's parks parched and brown. A growing Black
Lives Matter movement is protesting what many see as racist policing. Brexit is still not quite settled.
Once, Charles might have seen all this and stepped into the fray. But in the same play, Shakespeare's Henry IV remarked that “fortune never come with both hands full.” To do one duty, Charles III must abandon another.