Prince Harry was seen boarding a private jet to go to a one-day polo competition, but the plane remained idle on the airfield for at least 30 minutes as it waited for his crew to come in an SUV to drop off his polo gear.
Around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, The Duke of Sussex boarded the $9 million Bombardier Challenger 600 at a Santa Barbara airfield to fly to Aspen for the round-robin competition.
Harry, who often lectures about the “climate calamity” plaguing the planet, drove an electric Audi SUV to the airport near his $14 million Montecito home.
But after that, he remained on the idle private plane for 30 minutes until the royal’s crew came at approximately 11.35 a.m. with his polo gear in a black Range Rover.
Then, two guys were spotted using a golf cart to transport Harry’s green kit bag and mallets to the aircraft before loading them into the cargo hold.
Marc Ganzi, a polo fan and businessman with ties to Florida, is the owner of the private plane. Ganzi has known Harry for a very long time.
The Ganzi family has already performed in London with Prince Charles and William on multiple occasions, and they are already present at the Colorado club in advance of the current performance.
Harry said that he and his crew were “delighted to return once again to the lovely grounds of Aspen Valley Polo Club for the annual Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup” before to the one-day competition.
Harry will be playing with Nachos Figueras on the same squad for the round robin round of the competition.
The polo hero attended the royal wedding and was among the first to see the prince’s son Archie in 2019.
The prince and the Argentinian have played on the same polo squad together in several competitions throughout the years.
It is unknown whether the Duke’s wife Meghan Markle, 40, and their two kids Archie and Lilibet will watch the race from the stands or if they will stay at their nine-bedroom estate.
The pair has come under fire for using private planes while preaching about “making a difference” and the necessity for “urgent action” to stop climate change on several occasions.
When Harry and Meghan returned to the UK in June for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee festivities on a private plane for the first time since standing down as senior royals, they received a significant amount of reaction.
The same Bombardier Global 6000 that Harry was seen flying in yesterday morning carried the couple and their two kids from Windsor to California.
The aircraft, which has its own “private cabin” with a flatbed and the capacity to fly more than 6,000 miles without stopping, can accommodate up to 13 people.
More than six tonnes of carbon dioxide would have been released during Harry’s one-way, hour-and-a-half journey to Aspen, and just over 12 tonnes if he uses the jet on his return flight.
The prince has previously defended his use of private aircraft and stated that commercial planes account for 99 percent of his aviation travel.
He said that in 2019, he attempted to offset his CO2 emissions in order to counteract the consequences of private aircraft.
Last year, Harry flew in a separate aircraft owned by the US entrepreneur to the Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup before boarding a $53 million Gulfstream to go back to his wife Meghan and their two kids.
The Aspen Valley Polo Club hosts the yearly event, which is the charity’s single-largest fundraising opportunity to further its work on behalf of young people in Lesotho and Botswana.
Sentable, which works with children in southern Africa whose lives have been impacted by severe poverty, injustice, HIV/AIDS, and Covid-19, was founded in 2006 by Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho.
Climate scientists estimate that the Sussex family’s voyage from the UK to California to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee produced 10 times more carbon emissions than if they had flown a commercial aeroplane.
The amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere throughout their voyage from Farnborough to Santa Barbara would have been close to 60 tonnes.
While Harry’s trip to play polo and the couple’s return to England sent them beyond their annual carbon allowance by more than 3400%, despite their frequent sermons about the dangers of global warming.
The Paris Agreement specifies that each person’s carbon budget should be no more than 2.1 tonnes per year in an effort to halt global warming.
The combined carbon dioxide emissions from Harry and Meghan’s private jet travel this year, including their roundtrip to the UK, total 72 tonnes, which is more than 36 times the recommended level.
Harry and Meghan introduced a new eco-travel initiative earlier this year, where travellers would be “graded” according on how environmentally friendly they were.
Harry and Meghan made a commitment to have their Archewell foundation become net zero by the year 2030 during the Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow in November of last year.
On their website, they published a statement claiming that they had “actively taken decisions to offset and balance their carbon impact” and that they would be considering “what they eat” and “how frequently they consume it.”
Harry said that it was “quite dismal” for kids to grow up in a world when their nation was “either on fire or submerged” in May of last year. He also emphasised that climate change must be addressed “from the root.”