Like him or loathe all he stands for, there's no denying King Charles is a climate visionary
King Charles III
's lifelong commitment to environmental causes looks increasingly prophetic, rather than the eccentricity it was once derided as. Never the empire-building, warmongering type of monarch, Charles spent most of his adult life cutting ribbons and hosting tea parties while vocally pursuing his personal interest in nature and conservation. Since his first big speech about pollution and over-consumption in 1970, he has championed environmental causes, long before such activity was popular or mainstream.
He was ridiculed by the British tabloid press throughout the 1980s for converting his farm to organic methods when that was considered a cultish practice; for talking to plants, railing against modern architecture, and banning hairspray in his home to save the ozone layer.
In advance of the
Cop26 conference in 2021
, hosted by the UK in Glasgow,
he converted his Aston Martin
to run on a fuel blend made from surplus English white wine and whey from the cheese process. While hardly a scalable solution for transport fuel, he used the opportunity to highlight the importance of concrete actions rather than words.
Mostly, Charles's views (and his aesthetics) have aged rather well. Since first reading EF Schumacher's groundbreaking 1973 book, Small is Beautiful: a Study of Economics as if People Mattered, the British monarch communicates a modern environmentalism that incorporates nature restoration, sustainable living and prudent resource management that has a broad appeal to both the horsey Tory conservationists and youthful climate strikers alike.
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Of course, no amount of rewilding projects or climate initiatives can mask the reality that a monarchy is an institution that is fundamentally at odds with any egalitarian society. Nor is it a blueprint for a sustainable future in which, as Schumacher would have argued, decisions are best made at the lowest possible level. While he has certainly promoted a sustainable lifestyle, Charles's values of responsible and prudent property ownership are not in vogue with most of his fellow super-rich, who according to
Oxfam burned through their share of the carbon budget in the first ten days of 2025
.
Yet I'm betting that Charles's vision for stewardship and respect for nature will endure. It certainly helps that the Crown Estate, which is not directly managed by the British royals but influenced by them, owns so much land. The Crown Estate consists of 185,000 acres in England and Wales and a further 87,000 acres in Scotland, and nearly half of the foreshore around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and virtually all the seabed out to 12 nautical miles around Scotland. It also helps that its mandate is to create lasting and shared prosperity, and not a quick return.
While most of the land is leased rather than managed directly, the Crown Estate has become a leading example of a portfolio managed for long-term impact and with future generations in mind. It netted nearly half a billion pounds in revenues from its offshore wind leases in 2024 alone, and manages its land holdings with a view to creating financial, environmental and social value now and for future generations.
The Crown Estate is not the only good model of corporate sustainability and stewardship by any means. But if the King were toppled by his subjects tomorrow, it is hard to see the Crown Estate, which is supported by Acts of Parliament going back hundreds of years, tumbling with him. Some institutions are built – and designed – to last.
At the root of the British monarchy's continuous power and enduring influence is land ownership. At present in Ireland, land is being accumulated by non-traditional, non-farming owners, mostly under the guise of stud farming and to exploit a
tax loophole
that has little to do with intergenerational equity outside of individual families. Prudent land management for nature conservation, carbon storage and associated community benefits requires policy and tenure stability, and also
transparency
about who actually owns the land.
We also lack a vision for State-owned land, most of which is owned by Coillte. Both Coillte and Bord na Móna – which together own nearly 8 per cent of the land of Ireland – are operating under arguably contradictory and outdated mandates to both return a profit and to manage land for the benefit of people and nature.
Monarchy is an archaic and antiquated way to run a country. But in our own forthcoming presidential election, perhaps there is an opportunity to choose a figurehead who can convincingly articulate the case for respecting nature, for managing land for the benefit of all, and for uniting around a common vision for the future.
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There were at least 50,000 people in uniform here, between the British army, the RUC, prison officers, etc. 'Fifty-thousand uniforms and the IRA still planted bombs on the Shankill Road and in the pubs and the clubs and in the Sandy Row. What was that? That was to terrorise the people. That was pure sectarianism.' Mary changed things for us. The politicians didn't want to know us. Mary played a vital role. She is a great woman — McDonald on Mary McAleese Faced with talk of Irish unity and Sinn Féin successes, McDonald emphasises that unionist politicians and loyalists must unite, although complaining how little the former has ever delivered for the latter. 'Unionists are in the castle. When they see us loyalists coming, they lift up the drawbridge. They'll say, 'You can stay out there and we'll look after you and we'll feed you and so on but you're not getting in here'.' That must change, especially since 'Britain would dump us in the morning': 'I want unionism to be united. The word loyalist is always followed by some derogatory word, and it shouldn't be like that. 'Somehow, we have to get unionism united and get genuine loyalists into a position where they can close that gap between unionism and loyalism. But we have to widen the gap between genuine loyalism and criminality. That's the key.' A united Ireland will not happen in his lifetime, he believes. But if it were ever to happen, he asks:' Where would the Orange Order go? Where would the 30,000 bandsmen go? Where would ex-loyalist prisoners go? 'Are we going to be like the Apaches or the Indians put away in a reservation somewhere?' asks McDonald, who has a good working relationship with senior republicans across Belfast, and elsewhere. Mary McAleese and her husband, Martin, struck up unlikely but an important friendship with UDA leader Jackie McDonald. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien During tense periods – and this weekend is one – a network of republican-loyalist contacts – largely unrecognised and unnoticed – defuse many volatile situations. Though he lost friends during the Troubles, he displays no bitterness. Recalling a conversation with former IRA prisoner Sean 'Spike' Murray, he noted how Murray said they 'probably would have tried to kill each other' in the past, but now they can even share car lifts. For a number of years, former loyalist and republican paramilitaries visited schools to talk about the real cost of the conflict, the coffins of fathers and sons carried, the pain, not the imagined past of heroic actions. 'We wanted to deromanticise paramilitarism. ''Do you want to go to prison?' we told them, 'Your life's ruined. When you come out your wife's divorced you and married somebody else and has children with somebody else.' I think we did a great job of deglamourising paramilitarism.' Today, McDonald keeps in touch with the McAleeses. 'Mary changed things for us,' he says. 'The politicians didn't want to know us. The police wanted to arrest us. She made it easier for politicians up here to talk to us. Mary played a vital role. She is a great woman.' McDonald has no notion of stepping down. 'It wouldn't matter what plans I had, people are telling me, 'You are not retiring.' I want to keep going as long as I can.'
