Abdoulie Ceesay is the deputy majority leader of Gambia’s National Assembly. He’s also a member of Gambia’s delegation to the African, Caribbean and Pacific states for the EU Parliamentary Assembly and the founder of the Help Foundation Gambia.
As a Gambian, I was watching the actions of Britain’s new king with great hope.
You may think this strange. Africa is still reckoning with centuries of Western colonial exploitation, after all — a legacy that lined the Global North’s coffers while depleting our natural resources, leaving us impoverished and vulnerable to the worst effects of climate change.
However, the upcoming COP27 U.N. Climate Change Conference was a landmark opportunity for the so-called “Climate King” to help remedy the dangerous lack of understanding threatening to curtail climate negotiations.
A historic opportunity that, sadly, he will miss.
The fact is that the world’s richest are almost entirely responsible for historic emissions. Last year’s COP26 — which King Charles opened — failed the Global South and did not do enough to shape the kind of global cooperation needed to combat climate change.
Pledges made at COP26 haven’t curbed carbon emissions, and we are still waiting on the $100 billion promised to help developing countries. Meanwhile, in the wake of the destruction in Central Africa, Pakistan and beyond, the call for reparations and accountability from the West is only growing.
But Western leaders are actively ignoring climate justice. Former United States Secretary of State John Kerry just recently dismissed the prospect of compensating for “loss and damage,” questioning which government possesses the “trillions of dollars” required by — or, as some believe, are owed to — the Global South.
This is ultimately an issue of climate justice — one which will make or break a climate action alliance between the Global North and Global South.
And Charles could have gone some way in overcoming this trust deficit — not by making pledges, or taking part in political discussions, but by standing above politics, from a position of moral leadership the world would be forced to take notice.
COP27 was an opportunity for him to use his rank to usher in a new era of climate action, one built on the social capital of the royal family and the Church of England, demonstrating to naysayers that the British monarchy still has a relevant role in modern leadership.
It’s been done before. The late Queen Elizabeth countered the legacy of colonialism that scarred our lands. She won hearts and minds across the region through her relationships with African leaders like Nelson Mandela and her behind-the-scenes influence in pressuring the South African government over its institutionalized racist segregation. Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney credited Charles’ mother with helping bring an end to South Africa’s apartheid.
Today, climate experts, former royal advisors, even the prime minister of Australia all claim Charles is one of the most significant climate advocates of our time. Even when the environment was hardly on most people’s agenda, he withstood criticism for his position on pollution, and even took on British officials’ fury for his outspoken opposition to sewage disposal in the North Sea.
And the world needs moral leaders now more than ever before. The global challenges we face, specifically irreversible climate change, are occurring at a time of increased polarization and distrust. Moral leaders can help unite people against common threats by symbolically guiding public opinion and promoting shared values.
Religious leaders, for example, are now transforming the once contentious relationship between climate change and faith. Even Pope Francis has urged “radical’” climate action. And Dr. Mohammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa — a prominent Muslim scholar and secretary-general of the world’s largest Islamic NGO, the Muslim World League – is building a revolutionary coalition of climate, science and faith leaders in the Global South, known as Faith For Our Planet.
For his part, the King spent his life traveling, building relations with the Global South and advocating for climate action through unparalleled philanthropic work. By snubbing COP27 at the behest of his prime minister, he’s undermining his legacy, altering how history will remember him.
Were he to have use his moral leadership on the world stage, Charles might also retain greater loyalty amongst the Commonwealth — after all, from Antigua to Barbuda, votes are being planned to remove him as head of state.
Saddest of all, however, his absence grants endorsement to a far more destructive legacy — that of colonial rule. It will essentially say to the people of the 56 Commonwealth countries and beyond that they have been abandoned to face the destruction the empire helped shape.
The world is inching ever closer to planetary disaster. War, food shortages and displacement require the monarch’s leadership to inspire humanitarian action, and to influence climate solutions that are grounded in compassion and transcend petty partisan politics.
The king has a duty, to country and God, as well as the future of humanity, not to abandon his legacy at this year’s COP27. For if he does, not only will it harm the planet, it will also implicitly endorse one of the darkest chapters in history, cementing the dispute between the Global North and South permanently.
