It is time for Europe and China, including Hong Kong, to lead global climate action as the United States is taking a less prominent role following its Paris Agreement withdrawal, Belgian Princess Esmeralda told The Standard.
The 68-year-old princess, also a journalist and outspoken climate activist, admitted that she felt disappointed and frustrated by the lack of progress in tackling an international emergency, but remained optimistic in the way forward.
“In Chinese philosophy, a crisis is a danger, but also an opportunity,”
“The US is not playing a leading role for the moment, so it's the time for China, Hong Kong, and Europe to take the lead. I'm sure, [there are] more actions, probably opportunities, to go faster.”
She listed some of Hong Kong’s green efforts, including promoting the use of electric vehicles and cleaning air quality.
“We can all learn from each other. There are great things in Hong Kong, there are great things done in Europe and elsewhere. So we need this collaboration and transfer to knowledge both ways.”
The Belgian princess believed the current greatest obstacle in tackling climate change was the mistaken view that environmental policies must come at the expense of economic growth and development.
“We have to absolutely prove that the new energy, clean energy will bring jobs, will bring development,"
"If we don't take on those measures, which are, of course, expensive, they will be much more expensive than in some years,” she warned.
In addition to uncertainty about global climate action after US President Donald Trump’s administration pulled Washington out of the Paris Agreement, a legally-binding international climate treaty, civil movements are also facing more challenges.
Researchers at the University of Bristol last year found that the UK, Australia and Norway have the highest arrest rates for climate protesters, and that the UK was three times more likely to arrest environmental activists than the global average.
In 2019, the princess made headlines when police removed her from an Extinction Rebellion sit-in at Trafalgar Square and jailed her for five hours, treating her no differently despite her royal status.
Still, she holds her belief in the power of civil disobedience and peaceful demonstration.
“If you look through history, every important step, every important revolution was made by civil disobedience, because when the law is not good, we have to fight it. It has to be a pacific way, I don’t think violence can bring anything good.”
“I know people who are, for example, in jail with very long sentences who just protested for climate or the future, and that's absolutely not acceptable. But we are still continuing to petition and hope that the law will change.”
When asked if she has felt like “the black sheep” in her royal family due to her activism, Princess Esmeralda does not think this is the case, saying that her family is very concerned about the environment and the climate crisis.
“Maybe sometimes they think and I go too far, because I express a lot, but they agree with the fundamental principle.”
An environmental, indigenous and women rights’ campaigner, Princess Esmeralda is the president of the Leopold III Fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation, founded in 1972 by her late father.
She has co-directed a documentary film, Amazonia, the Heart of Mother Earth, which paints a picture of the ongoing struggle to safeguard the vital lands on Earth through the firsthand accounts of five indigenous leaders spanning four generations.
(Jamie Liu)
