Call him the Green Prince.
Britain’s Prince Charles is on a 10-day tour of Latin America to promote measures to combat climate change - and to raise his profile as a national ambassador.
“If we do nothing, the consequences for every person on this earth will be severe and unprecedented, with vast numbers of environmental refugees, social instability and decimated economies - far worse than anything which we are seeing today,” Charles said in a speech in Chile earlier this week.
The trip is one of an increasing number of high-profile trips Charles has taken at the behest of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, which reportedly wants to make greater use of his experience, expertise and contacts.
British officials believe the prince’s passion to protect the environment is respected abroad and that he can play a growing diplomatic role, the British Telegraph recently reported.
“Given both the Prince’s position as a future head of state and his personal commitment to protecting the environment, we believe he can have a real impact abroad,” a source told the Telegraph. A special emphasis is being placed in this trip on meetings with prime ministers, presidents, and senior politicians in an effort to promote British interests abroad, the source said.
The thinking is that Charles, who has spent his entire life as heir apparent, will become king in the next few years. Queen Elizabeth is 82; he turned 60 last November - a rite of passage that prompted much public speculation about what sort of head-of-state he might be.
He “will be a High Green, caring for the planet,” according to a column in More Intelligent Life. “He will differ with urban greens on the hunting and farming of animals, but will be similarly militant on climate change–more than any mainstream British politician of today.”
Certainly, Charles has been an outspoken crusader for environmental causes for several years, creating a £1-billion property fund to build energy efficient homes in Britain and building an organic food business called Duchy Originals.
He has reportedly sold off cars, installed geothermal heaters at his country homes to bring down carbon emissions, and even reengineered his Jaguar, Range Rover and beloved 38-year-old Aston Martin to run on bio-fuels.
Some, however, accuse him of hypocrisy, noting he took a private jet for the tour of Latin America which is likely to release 322 tons of carbon dioxide during the trip.
“To hear that the Prince of Wales is flying to South America to save the environment and taking 14 staff on his jet at hideous cost just for this trip is the height of the absurd,” Labour MP Ian Davidson told the Daily Mail.
Aides, however, say that security considerations as well as his heavy schedule, dictated the use of a private jet.
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