For months now, I’ve gotten the feeling that royal reporters are trying to indicate that Queen Camilla is running the show these days and that she’s the sole gatekeeper to her husband. We’ve heard versions of that regarding Prince Harry’s visits to London this year, and how Charles weirdly avoided Harry every time – sources claimed that Camilla is the one convincing Charles to block Harry at every turn, and we know that Camilla is still briefing friendly journalists about Harry and his visits. Now Camilla is putting in her two cents about Charles avoiding the Cop29 climate summit in November.
As a vocal champion of the environment, King Charles has long sought to use his position to steer and influence the global discussion around climate and conservation. So it is perhaps a sign of just how seriously he and his aides are taking his current cancer diagnosis that he is foregoing an opportunity to do that on a global stage at the annual COP conference in Baku, Azerbaijan later this year.
A friend of Charles and Queen Camilla told The Daily Beast: “Camilla will be pleased he is not going straight off to Azerbaijan. She didn’t particularly want him to go to Australia, and she will be encouraging him to take it easy once he gets back—never an easy task.”
The king was thought to be angry when, newly crowned, he was banned from going to COP27 in 2022 by the famously short lived British Prime Minister Liz Truss in 2022. He attended COP28 the following year, delivering the opening address. Official sources at the palace briefed The Daily Beast and other media that the king would not be attending COP29 this year because he will have “recently” got back to the U.K. after his trip to Australia and Samoa. In fact, he is expected home from the trip to Oceania by around Oct. 26, and COP does not start until Nov. 11.
The proffered reason suggests that the king’s family and aides will be encouraging the king, who is being treated for cancer, to take plenty of time to recuperate after the grueling, 6,000 mile round trip, but will also stoke fears that the king is more seriously ill than his office are saying.
It seems like all things can be true at once: Charles needs to protect his health; the courtiers are wary of adding Cop29 to his schedule because they don’t know how long he will need to recover; Camilla is largely pulling the strings within the palace. Also: the reason why Camilla wanted Charles to skip Australia is because she doesn’t want to travel anymore either. She made that clear after the coronation – now that she got the crown and now that she has all of the power behind the throne, she does not want to travel or tour.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.