Overview
- The Throne Room reception, organised by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, convened about 250 guests during London Climate Action Week to focus on cutting super pollutants.
- Speakers included UN Secretary‑General António Guterres, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, and COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev praised the King’s commitment.
- Exhibition stalls from groups such as the Clean Air Task Force, Clean Air Fund, and Wellcome Trust showed practical steps to cut methane, black carbon, HFCs, nitrous oxide and tropospheric ozone.
- Experts at the gathering said reducing these short‑lived pollutants can deliver rapid benefits and could limit near‑term warming by up to about 0.6°C by 2050 while improving health and crop yields.
- The palace released archival footage of a 21‑year‑old Prince of Wales to underline the King’s long‑running environmental advocacy and images of the monarch using a handheld fan linked the push to the current heatwave.