Global Warming And Prince Charles
‘We should be treating the whole issue of climate change with a far greater degree of priority’
- Prince Charles, 27 October 2005
Pity then that Prince Charles doesn’t heed his own advice and look at his own carbon footprint and its effect on global warming..
In April 2009, the heir to the British throne took a five day trip around Europe to promote the UK Government’s global warming policies. Unfortunately, he chartered a private Airbus A319 to transport him and his entourage between Rome, Venice and Berlin.
Easyjet uses this aircraft type to carry 156 passengers. Prince Charles’ plane on the other hand, was only carrying him, his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall plus ten staff in a luxury interior.
The carbon footprint of the four flights totalling 2200 miles is estimated to be nearly 53 tons. In comparison, a normal person’s annual carbon footprint is 11 tons! If each member of the party had flown on a scheduled flight on this aircraft type then they would have emitted a massive thirteen times less carbon dioxide. So much for reducing global warming!
The controversy comes less than two months after Prince Charles’ supposedly eco-awareness of global warming trip to South America in February. A chartered jet was again used to fly the royal couple plus 14 staff on a ten-day trip to Brazil, Chile and Ecuador. Prince Charles’ office claimed that the jet was necessary because of the Prince’s tight schedule.
Prince Charles’ attitude has caused outrage amongst Members of Parliament. The Transport Spokesman for the LibDems, Norman Baker put it best: ‘Prince Charles seems not to realise that he enormously weakens his case for tackling climate change by his own profligate and careless habits.
‘It is deeply unattractive to have somebody lecturing you on climate change when they are one of the greatest emitters of carbon themselves.
‘When you couple Prince Charles’s private jets with Prince Andrew’s helicopters, you cannot help but think that the Royal Family is part of the carbon problem rather than part of the carbon solution.’
If Prince Charles wants his views on global warming to be taken seriously, he needs to consider his air travel. Convenience is not a good enough excuse, especially if Prince Charles expects others to make sacrifices for the sake of global warming.
Instead, he should be promoting new technologies to reduce global warming, like video conferencing, that reduce the need for air travel. Perhaps he hasn’t heard of Skype yet.
Jetsetting by Prince Charles, whatever he likes to think, will not make one jot of difference to solving the problem of climate change. Actually, he’s making it by making much it worse by emitting unnecessarily-large amounts of carbon and increasing global warming!
