Prince Charles attends sustainability event on second day of Egypt visit

Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla attended separate events in Cairo on Friday, the second day of their visit to the Egyptian capital. While Charles visited a sustainability event to promote climate change co-operation, one of the main agendas of his trip, Camilla visited a nearby animal hospital.

The Prince of Wales met Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad and other prominent officials at an event organised by the Sustainable Markets Initiative at the American University in Greek Campus, Cairo. He also took part in a roundtable discussion on climate change, attended by Ms Fouad and Greek Campus chairman Ahmed El Alfi.

Meanwhile, Camilla visited the Brooke Hospital for Animals in the Sayeda Zeinab district. Photographs of the duchess showed her petting a donkey at the hospital.

The royal visit, part of a Middle East tour that began in Jordan this week, has been touted as a passing of the UN Climate Change Conference baton, which ended its 26th conference in Glasgow last week and is set to come to Egypt for its 27th next year.

“We have to be the custodians of a truth that our ancestors understood so well, that we are, in actual fact, part of the natural world, not separate from it, and above all it is our duty to do all in our power to protect nature rather than testing her to literal destruction,” Prince Charles said at a press event overlooking the Giza pyramids on Thursday night.

A planned visit on Friday to the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, moored off the coast of Alexandria, was cancelled due to "operational reasons" after one of its F35 fighter jets crashed into the Mediterranean on Wednesday.

An extensive multination search is being mounted for the aircraft. The pilot ejected safely and was returned to the aircraft carrier.

The royal couple arrived in Cairo on Thursday on their first visit to Egypt since 2006, and were received at the Al Ittihadiya presidential palace by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and first lady Entissar El Sisi.

In a nod to another of Charles’s agendas, religious inclusivity, the couple visited Al Azhar.

The Prince of Wales helped start a British academic scholarship programme, which allows Al Azhar scholars to pursue degrees in Islamic studies at British universities before returning to Al Azhar to work as faculty members.

The couple then headed to the pyramids of Giza, the Egyptian capital’s most popular tourist attraction.

The Giza site was not cleared of tourists, however.

Camel drivers and vendors were instructed to leave the area by 2pm, one of them told The National., but tourists were allowed to remain to highlight the recovery of the country’s tourism sector.

The royal visit led to more congested than usual on the capital's streets on Thursday, as many main roads were closed to secure the couple's route through the city.

Several markets were also closed for security reasons as the royals visited Al Azhar.