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King Charles just faced a protest in Australia and he could be confronted with another at the upcoming Commonwealth summit, where the UK is under mounting pressure to provide financial reparations for its role in the climate crisis as well as slavery.
The British king was heckled on Monday by Aboriginal Australian senator Lidia Thorpe, a critic of the monarchy and campaigner for Indigenous people’s rights.
“You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back,” the independent senator from Victoria shouted at Charles. “Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people.”
Follow our live coverage of King’s visit.
The confrontation came as the monarch prepared to visit Samoa this week for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting where leaders of some of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis, such as the Bahamas, were expected to call on the UK and other wealthy nations to pay billions in reparations for their historical contributions to the crisis.
Bahamian prime minister Philip Davis said the climate crisis was “truly existential” for many island nations and that the Commonwealth, which unites some of the richest and most vulnerable nations, provided the ideal forum to seek justice.
“If we cannot find ways to make our countries more resilient to these shocks, we will not survive,” he told the Observer.
Charles, who has been vocal about environmental causes, was expected to focus on sustainable solutions for combating the crisis but likely to avoid getting involved in discussions surrounding reparations.
The monarch was set to be joined by prime minister Keir Starmer at the meeting of 56 countries in the Samoan capital Apia.
The summit started on Monday with a focus on income inequity, violence and discrimination faced by women, described by Commonwealth secretary general Patricia Scotland as a “plague in our world”.
Charles was expected to join the summit in the middle of this week.
In a speech in Australia on Monday, he said the Commonwealth “has the diversity to understand the world’s problems and the sheer brain power and resolve to formulate practical solutions”.
“I see a family of some 2.5 billion people striving for peace, justice and mutual respect,” he said.
“The Commonwealth spans six continents and as a group has the size and influence to play a significant role on the global stage, while being small enough to nurture personal relationships.”
The summit promised to reignite difficult conversations about historical justice.
In addition to climate reparations, the summit could address demands for compensation for slavery, an issue that Mr Davis and other Caribbean leaders planned to discuss with Mr Starmer.
At the last Commonwealth summit, Charles expressed sorrow for the British Empire’s role in the slave trade but, like successive British governments and monarchs, stopped short of offering a formal apology for the country’s role in the mass enslavement of African people.
Now with Britain facing demands for up to £200 billion in slavery and £6.2 trillion in climate reparations by 2050, tensions were expected to rise at the summit.
Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley met Charles in London earlier this month to discuss the matter ahead of the Commonwealth gathering. Ms Mottley praised the king for his openness on the subject, stating that he acknowledged the importance of addressing Britain’s role in the slave trade and calling it “a conversation whose time has come”.
She raised the matter of reparations at a recent United Nations event. “The numbers have been looked at and studied by many persons and the figures suggest a minimum of $5 trillion dollars, 4.9 to be precise, is what it would be if we were to be similarly compensated across the board today.”
Britain was involved in the trafficking and sale of millions of African people for profit for centuries.
Governments, campaigners and descendants of the enslaved say practical amendments for the atrocities of slavery are required. But the UK has refused to engage in formal conversations about reparations both for the climate and the slave trade.
On climate, it has tried to shift focus to carbon reduction strategies and offering expertise on developing sustainable, low-carbon infrastructure, which the King’s Foundation was expected to showcase during the event.
But the issue of climate finance, including funding for irreparable damage from climate disasters, could be in focus again at the UN climate summit Cop 29 in Baku, where all heads of states around the world would be present.