King Charles has been praised for his Cop28 speech by John Sergeant.
Not allowing the monarch to speak would have been “patronising”, the former BBC Chief Political Correspondent claimed.
Sergeant spoke to GB News on the matter amid concerns the monarch was veering too much into political spheres by appearing at the conference.
“He has spent all his life working on this”, he said.
John Sergeant has praised King Charles
PA / GB NEWS
“People have been sneering at him, laughing and so on. It would have been awful for all of us to not let him say anything once he became King.
“It would have seemed so petty. He played it brilliantly today. He said how serious it all is.
King Charles has been vocal on climate issues
PA“He didn’t say anything like ‘my Government has got it all wrong’, I think it was a rather nice, moving way to say, this man as Prince of Wales, becomes King and of course should be allowed to speak about it in general terms.
“Not in political terms and certainly not party political terms.
“He was very careful in what he said and he was well within his rights. I thought it was nice and very moving to see him take position as King.”
The King used his speech at the conference to call on delegates present to herald the event as a “critical turning point”.
Charles said at the opening of the World Climate Action Summit on Friday that despite some progress, “transformational action” was needed as the dangers of climate change are “no longer distant risks”.
The monarch told heads of state, heads of government and business and climate delegates at Expo City Dubai that nature was being taken into “dangerous, uncharted territory” by human activity, and called for “nature-positive” change.
Cop28 will be the first time that countries will conduct a “global stocktake” of progress made since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, although it is expected that it will not produce a positive result.
In his address, the King said: “I pray with all my heart that Cop28 will be another critical turning point towards genuine transformational action at a time when, already, as scientists have been warning for so long, we are seeing alarming tipping points being reached.
“Despite all the attention, there is 30% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than there was back then, and almost 40% more methane.
“Some important progress has been made, but it worries me greatly that we remain so dreadfully far off track as the global stocktake report demonstrates so graphically.
“The dangers are no longer distant risks. I have seen across the Commonwealth, and beyond, countless communities which are unable to withstand repeated shocks, whose lives and livelihoods are laid waste by climate change.
“Surely, real action is required to stem the growing toll of its most vulnerable victims.”