King Charles will deliver the opening address at the opening ceremony of COP28 in Dubai and meet the president of the United Arab Emirates, Buckingham Palace announced today.
Charles will join Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan tomorrow before delivering the opening address at the World Climate Action Summit on Friday.
The monarch, 75, will also sit down with regional leaders to ‘support the UK’s efforts to promote peace’ in the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Charles missed Cop27 in Egypt last year following advice from the Government while Liz Truss was prime minister, despite it being widely reported that he had hoped to attend in person.
It comes at a sensitive time for the Royal Family, with two of its members apparently named as the ‘royal racists’ in the Dutch translation of Omid Scobie’s new book Endgame, according to reports.
King Charles followed by Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives to host a reception to mark the conclusion of the Global Investment Summit at Buckingham Palace on Monday
The King will meet Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan tomorrow. They are seen together in London in 2020
King Charles and Queen Camilla during a visit to Dubai Humanitarian International City in 2016
Dutch royal journalist Rick Evers revealed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the first name was ‘very specific’, while the second one was ‘a little bit vague’.
It comes after Mr Scobie’s book was pulled from sale in the Netherlands yesterday after it apparently named one of the ‘royal racists’. The author’s Dutch publishers said they had been ordered by US bosses to put sales ‘on hold’ at the eleventh hour.
Thousands of copies of Endgame, which was published globally yesterday to withering reviews for its vindictiveness toward the Royal Family, face being pulped.
In the English-language edition Mr Scobie does not name the royal accused by Meghan of expressing ‘concern’ about the skin colour of her future son Archie.
But the book alleges that in her letters to discuss the situation the duchess claims similar remarks were made by a second person in the Royal Household.
In the English version, Mr Scobie says he knows the names of both individuals but ‘laws in the United Kingdom prevent me from reporting who they were’. The same sentence is in the Italian edition.
However a page taken from a review copy of the book sent to Dutch journalists this week clearly points the finger at a senior royal.
Referring to the letters discussing the issue, it reads dramatically: ‘But in those private letters an identity was revealed and confirmed: [The Mail has redacted the name concerned and will not be repeating it].’
It is unclear why one foreign language version of the book would name a specific individual when no other editions appear to do so. And it should be stressed that there is no evidence the claim itself is even true.
Mr Evers, who first revealed yesterday that the book had identified one of the ‘royal racists’, told Good Morning Britain today: ‘Names of two senior royals are mentioned during the book.’
Host Richard Madeley then asked: ‘Can I be clear about this, there are two names in the book?’
And Mr Evers replied: ‘Yes, the first one is very specific. The second one is a little bit vague, if this person is really involved in the story. But the first one is very clear and the official way was that it was a translation issue.
‘There are some debates about how these passages were stated in the book. I would say how could you translate a name wrong?’
Omid Scobie appears on ABC programme Nightline which aired early this morning in the US
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with their children Archie and Lilibet in December 2021
Dutch royal journalist Rick Evers revealed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today (pictured) that the first name in the book was ‘very specific’, while the second one was ‘a little bit vague’
Buckingham Palace revealed more details of Charles’ Middle East trip today.
Tomorrow, he will meet students from across the Commonwealth to hear about green tech and sustainable innovations.
He will later join a Commonwealth and Nature reception, hosted jointly by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA).
His Majesty will meet global and Commonwealth indigenous leaders to talk about the role of using traditional knowledge alongside scientific knowledge to address the climate and nature crises.
Afterwards, Charles will meet female climate leaders working to address climate change and representatives from small island states that are threatened by sea level rises.
On Thursday evening, the King will join His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at a reception to launch COP28.
As Prince of Wales, Charles spent decades passionately campaigning on green and environmental issues.
While Prince of Wales, he had a more central role, delivering the opening address at the main opening ceremony of Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021 and Cop21 in Paris in 2015.
Buckingham Palace announced Charles, who is away on a state visit to Kenya, will travel to the UAE and open the World Climate Action Summit, which forms part of Cop28’s programme and convenes heads of state and government and other leaders to discuss concrete plans for tackling climate change.
The King was invited by UAE president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and will attend at the request of the UK Government, the Palace said.
Charles, who will make the trip from November 30 to December 1, will also attend a reception on November 30 to the launch the inaugural Cop28 Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum.
The two-day event runs parallel with the summit and is being hosted by the Cop28 Presidency in partnership with the Sustainable Markets Initiative, founded by the King.
Controversial: Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati president of COP28, is the head of a massive oil firm
It will bring together business, finance and philanthropy leaders and world leaders to try to find climate solutions.
COP28 has already been overshadowed by leaks suggesting UAE officials used the UN climate change talks to push for lucrative new oil and gas deals.
Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati president of the UN’s COP28 meeting, planned to raise commercial oil and gas interests with foreign officials ahead of talks in the UAE’s business hub, leaked internal reports show.
They are the latest claims to cast doubt on whether the talks will boost efforts to cut emissions of planet-heating gases — or are more akin to a public relations exercise for the Gulf petro-monarchy.
Critics have long complained about Al Jaber leading the summit because of a conflict of interest with his other job — chief executive of the UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc.
Adnoc reportedly has aggressive expansion plans that will raise carbon emissions, while state-run UAE oil and gas fields flare gas almost daily despite decades-old agreements, it is claimed.
Lawrence Carter, head of the Centre for Climate Reporting, which led the new probe, said Al Jaber has ‘sought to lobby on fossil fuel deals during meetings with foreign governments about the UN climate summit.’
The leaked documents include more 150 pages of preparatory briefing notes for meetings held by Al Jaber between July and October.
Oil and gas commercial interests appear as talking points in these files, with the reporting showing on at least one occasion a country followed up on discussions brought up during a meeting with Al Jaber.
The report, produced with the BBC, describes Al Jaber planning to lobby Brazil’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva to help push through Adnoc’s bid for Brazilian petrochemical firm Braskem.
Prof Michael Jacobs, a climate expert at Sheffield University, said these actions were ‘breathtakingly hypocritical.’
More than 70,000 officials, campaigners, and experts are expected to attend COP28 in Dubai