The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have met with Scouts from across the Dennistoun area to learn more about the #PromiseToThePlanet campaign, launched to coincide with COP26.
William and Kate, who are in Glasgow this week for COP26, travelled to the Alexandra Park Sports Hub to meet with Scouts and learn how the programme has taught them efficiencies around supporting the environment and ways to tackle climate change.
The #PromiseToThePlanet campaign was launched in June as a worldwide initiative to teach Scouts hands-on lessons “to make a difference wherever they live, use their voices to inspire decision-makers, and record their actions for the planet.”
The campaign also supports the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
During COP26, the Scouts’ mission is to call “politicians and changemakers ‘in’, not ‘out’ – because it’s their world too – making it clear that it’s their responsibility to make decisions in the Earth’s best interests,” and that their message to the global leaders in attendance is that, together, “We must not allow global warming to rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. We must commit to ambitious policies that protect people and nature and build a climate-resilient society. We must commit to making policies that are truly fair: they must require the largest contributors to climate change to take the most action.”
During their visit with the Scouts, William and Kate were hosted by Lewis Howe, a 12-year-old #OneStepGreener Ambassador who has been encouraging Scottish schools to reduce their food waste by creating meals from surplus food and giving them to those in need while using environmentally friendly packaging.
The royals took part in activities that teach Scouts how to tackle climate change and learned more about how they have been contributing to #PromiseToThePlanet. These include seed bombing to learn how to rewild the natural area around them, fixing bicycles to provide alternative transportation, and cooking veggie burgers, dubbed COP26 burgers by the Scouts website, to learn more about low impact foods.
The Duchess of Cambridge became Joint President of The Scout Association since September 2020, sharing the role with the Duke of Kent. She is the first woman to hold this position and has been actively involved with the Scouts since her introduction to royal life a decade ago.
The Scouts website notes that Kate “has been a great friend of the movement and a constant champion for young people. She is a great believer in the power of volunteering and has a particular interest and expertise in early years’ education.”
