King
Charles will have to tone down support for net zero after Badenoch says 2050 is
‘impossible’
Constitutional
expert says Tory leader’s break from political consensus over target for
greenhouse gasses will require monarch to choose his words carefully
Richard
Palmer
Sat 5 Apr
2025 18.00 BST
King Charles
will have to temper his public support for net zero after Kemi Badenoch broke
the political consensus over the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Senior royal
sources have conceded that the 76-year-old monarch, who has spent more than
half a century highlighting environmental challenges, will have to choose his
words more carefully now that the Conservatives under Badenoch have said it
will be impossible for the UK to hit net zero by 2050.
“The only
way that we can regain it [trust] is to tell the unvarnished truth – net zero
by 2050 is impossible,” the Conservative leader said last month.
Charles III
has spoken publicly about how vital it is to hit net zero by the 2050 target
date, set by Theresa May’s government in 2019 and agreed upon by subsequent
administrations. Successive prime ministers have used the king’s long track
record on campaigning for climate action to help promote Britain’s leadership
on combatting the challenges.
In December
2023, for example, the king told the Cop28 UN climate change conference in
Dubai that more urgent action was needed to bring the world towards a
zero-carbon future. “After all, ladies and gentlemen, in 2050 our grandchildren
won’t be asking what we said, they will be living with the consequences of what
we did or didn’t do,” he said.
At that
point, the main UK political parties were agreed on the issue. Now the monarch
runs the risk of becoming embroiled in a party political dispute. In addition
to the change in the Conservative view, Reform wants to scrap net zero
completely.
Craig
Prescott, a constitutional expert at Royal Holloway, University of London,
suggested the king must be less specific about his own views on the target. “I
think if you take the view that the monarchy has to be ‘two or three steps
away’ from party politics then, as party politics changes, the monarchy should
change,” he said.
Charles, who
flies to Italy tomorrow with Queen Camilla for a state visit that lasts until
Thursday, will still put tackling the climate crisis and other environmental
challenges at the heart of his monarchy.
The work to
create a more sustainable future will be a feature of the trip. In Rome, the
king will join a meeting chaired by the foreign secretary, David Lammy, and
attended by business leaders to hear how Britain and Italy are working together
on the transition to clean energy. In Ravenna he will meet farmers whose land
and crops have been severely affected by devastating floods in the region in
the past few years.
He and
Camilla, who celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary at a state banquet in
Rome on Wednesday evening, will visit the Colosseum and celebrate close defence
ties between the two countries, in spite of the political differences between
Keir Starmer’s Labour party and Italy’s rightwing leader, Giorgia Meloni.
The need to
avoid involving the king in party political controversy has been highlighted
after documents released on Friday revealed that the monarch secretly met
Prince Andrew to discuss his future and was twice briefed about plans for him
to be involved in a £2.4bn investment fund run by an alleged Chinese spy, Yang
Tengbo. Buckingham Palace insisted Yang, since banned from Britain despite
protesting his innocence, was not specifically mentioned.
Prince
William is likely to attend the Cop30 UN climate conference in Belém, Brazil,
in November and may also be more guarded than before about his views on
achieving net zero, although royals may still be expected to reflect on
government policy on the international stage.
Any
silencing of the monarch and his heir threatens to weaken Britain’s voice
abroad, according to some environmental groups. Shaun Spiers, executive
director of the environmental thinktank Green Alliance, said Charles might be
unable to speak out specifically on the 2050 target but could talk generally
about the need for climate action. “The king is a well-respected leader and it
would be a shame if he didn’t speak on it, particularly internationally,” he
said.
Reshima
Sharma, deputy head of politics at Greenpeace UK, pointed to popular support
for green policies. “King Charles has long been an important advocate for
action to clean up our environment and tackle climate change. While the
monarchy must remain politically neutral, thankfully climate action continues
to receive the kind of popular support that politicians can only dream of. This
is reflected across voters of all stripes,” she said.
Buckingham
Palace declined to comment.
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