King Charles to deliver speech at Cop28 opening ceremony in Dubai and meet with UAE president, Palace announces book controversy amid Omid Scobie with second member of royal family ‘called out as racist’ in Dutch translation

King Charles will deliver the opening speech at the opening ceremony of COP28 in Dubai and the The President of the United Arab Emirates, Buckingham Palace, announced this today.

Charles will join Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan tomorrow before delivering the opening address at the World Climate Action Summit on Friday.

The 75-year-old monarch will also sit down with regional leaders to ‘support British efforts’ to promote peace’ in the Middle East amid the war between Israel and Hamas.

Charles missed Cop27 in Egypt last year after government advice when Liz Truss was prime minister, despite it being widely reported he had hoped to attend in person.

It comes at a sensitive time for the royal family, with reports claiming two of its members are apparently being named as the ‘royal racists’ in the Dutch translation of Omid Scobie’s new book Endgame.

Dutch royal journalist Rick Evers revealed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the first name was ‘very specific’ while the second was ‘a bit vague’.

Mr Scobie’s book was withdrawn from sale in the Netherlands yesterday after it apparently named one of the ‘royal racists’. The author’s Dutch publishers said they had been instructed by American bosses to put sales ‘on hold’ at the eleventh hour.

Thousands of copies of Endgame, which was published worldwide yesterday and received scathing reviews for its revenge on the royal family, are in danger of being pulverized.

In the English-language edition, Scobie does not mention the royal family, which Meghan accuses of raising “concerns” about the skin color of her future son Archie.

But the book claims that in her letters to discuss the situation, the Duchess claims similar comments were made by a second person in the royal family.

In the English version, Mr Scobie says he knows the names of both people, but ‘the laws in the UK prevent me from reporting who they were’. The same sentence appears in the Italian edition.

However, a page from a review copy of the book sent to Dutch journalists this week clearly points the finger at a high-ranking royal family.

Referring to the letters discussing the matter, it states dramatically: ‘But in those private letters an identity was revealed and confirmed: [The Mail has redacted the name concerned and will not be repeating it].’

It is unclear why a foreign language version of the book would mention a specific individual, while no other edition appears to do so. And it must be emphasized that there is no evidence that the statement itself is even true.

Mr Evers, who yesterday revealed for the first time that the book had identified one of the ‘royal racists’, told Good Morning Britain today: ‘The book names two leading members of the royal family.’

Host Richard Madeley then asked, “Can I be clear about this, there are two names in the book?”

And Mr Evers replied: ‘Yes, the first is very specific. The second is a bit vague, if this person is really involved in the story. But the first one is very clear and the official way was that it was a translation problem.

‘There are some discussions about the way these passages are reported in the book. I would say: how can you mistranslate a name?’

Buckingham Palace revealed more details about Charles’ trip to Dubai in a briefing note released this morning.

Tomorrowhe will meet students from across the Commonwealth hear about green technology and sustainable innovations.

He will join us later for a Commonwealth and Nature reception, jointly organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA).

His Majesty will meet with world and Commonwealth indigenous leaders to discuss the role of using traditional knowledge alongside scientific knowledge to tackle the climate and nature crises.

Charles will then meet with women climate leaders committed to tackling climate change, and representatives of small island states threatened by sea level rise.

Tomorrow evening, the King will join His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at a reception to launch COP28.

As Prince of Wales, Charles campaigned passionately on green and environmental issues for decades.

The king was invited to COP28 by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and will attend at the request of the British government, the palace said.

COP28 has already been overshadowed by leaks showing that UAE officials have used the UN climate change negotiations to push for lucrative new oil and gas deals.

Sultan Al Jaber, the chairman of the UN COP28 meeting in the United Arab Emirates, planned to raise commercial oil and gas interests with foreign officials ahead of the talks in the UAE business hub, leaked internal reports reveal .

It is the latest claims that cast doubt on whether the talks will boost efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – or look more like a PR exercise for the Gulf petro-monarchy.

Critics have long complained that Al Jaber would lead the summit because of a conflict of interest with his other job: CEO of the UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc.

Adnoc reportedly has aggressive expansion plans that will increase carbon emissions, while state-owned oil and gas fields in the UAE are flaring gas on an almost daily basis despite decades-old agreements, it is claimed.

Lawrence Carter, head of the Center for Climate Reporting, which led the new research, said Al Jaber “tried to lobby for fossil fuel deals during meetings with foreign governments about the UN climate summit.”

The leaked documents include more than 150 pages of preparatory briefing notes for meetings Al Jaber held between July and October.

The commercial interests of oil and gas appear as topics of discussion in these files, with reporting showing that on at least one occasion a country followed up on discussions raised during a meeting with Al Jaber.

The report, prepared in collaboration with the BBC, describes Al Jaber’s plans to lobby Brazil’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, to push through Adnoc’s bid for Brazilian petrochemical company Braskem.

Professor Michael Jacobs, a climate expert at the University of Sheffield, said these actions were ‘breathtakingly hypocritical’.