Last November, Glasgow hosted the COP26 Climate Conference. World leaders traveled by plane from Rome (where the G20 Summit had been held) to Glasgow for an international conference about climate change. It was always going to be a bad look, especially given that all of the same people went to Rome and Glasgow, almost as if they could have just done the conference in Rome. Prince Charles obviously went to Rome, and then he acted as “host” of the COP26 in Glasgow, because the Queen was too ill to attend. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also made some extremely lightweight appearances at and around the conference too, including “playing with kids” and “getting drunk and jazz-handy.” The Cambridges had to make a big show of “traveling by train” to the climate conference, which is pretty funny given how much William, Kate, Charles and Camilla travel by private plane and helicopter. Now there’s even more energy towards how much money they’ve spent on private flights and how bad it all is for the environment:

The Royal Family spent more than £13m of public money on private chartered flights and helicopter journeys just under a decade before leading calls at Cop26 to combat the climate crisis, it can be revealed. The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William each issued stark messages to world leaders at the Glasgow summit about the threat posed to the planet by climate change – with the monarch urging them to act for “our children and our children’s children”.

But an investigation by The Independent has found that the Royals have taken millions of pounds’ worth of taxpayer-funded journeys using chartered flights and helicopters in the last eight years, prompting scrutiny from green campaigners, with one pointing out that people “believe in action much more strongly than words”.

It comes after criticism of world leaders and delegates who opted to travel to Cop26 in November by private jet – which are up to 14 times more polluting per passenger than commercial flights, according to a recent report. Boris Johnson and Prince Charles were among those who used private jets at the summit.

The Royal Family’s official travel is funded via the taxpayer through the Sovereign Grant. A comprehensive analysis by The Independent of travel data published in Sovereign Grant annual accounts from 2013/14 to 2020/21 reveals that at least £13.5m has been spent on travel using chartered flights and helicopters.

[From The Independent]

The Independent’s investigation uncovered a huge list of taxpayer-funded flights undertaken by Charles and Camilla specifically, including chartered flights to and from Colombia, Mexico, Muscat, India, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and on and on. What bugs me is that the Independent clearly “investigated” those flights for which there is a modicum of transparency, because Charles and Camilla were on official business, and they likely had security, press and staff flying with them. You could argue that while private/chartered flights are bad, if the plane is full and they’re there on official state/diplomatic business, it’s not AS bad.

What’s painful is that there’s zero transparency for the chartered flights and “private” helicopter trips for vacations and just regular travel in and around the UK for the royals. This is where it’s enormously tricky, because (from what I understand) there’s no line-item in the royal travel budget where people could really see how many times William and Kate fly by helicopter to and from Anmer Hall, for the hell of it, because they can.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.