Prince William is preparing to touch down in America for a climate change summit after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wrapped up a jubilant Invictus Games closing ceremony in Europe.
The Prince of Wales is visiting New York to promote his Earthshot Prize awards at a summit where guests will include former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Michael R. Bloomberg, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, and celebrity chef José Andrés.
William steps onto American soil days after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wowed in Europe with the Invictus Games, in Dusseldorf, Germany.
Prince William in New York
William will be without wife Kate Middleton who visited a naval base in Yeovil, on Monday, where she tried on and inflated a life jacket in her honorary role as commodore-in-chief of the Fleet Air Arm.
The main event of his visit will be at the Plaza Hotel, in New York City, on Tuesday when past winners of his climate change award, the Earthshot Prize, will talk about their innovative solutions aimed at helping save the planet.
The event will coincide with New York Climate Week and the 78th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, presenting William as a major player on the world stage.
And his arrival on Harry and Meghan’s home turf comes just as the couple are coming down from a PR high which saw them celebrated by adoring crowds in Germany.
And New York is a place the Sussexes have visited multiple times, including to the U.N., suggesting it is a city they want to target.
Harry and Meghan at the Invictus Closing Ceremony
Prince Harry and Meghan returned to the kind of adoration they enjoyed as working royals when they attended his Invictus Games tournament for wounded veterans.
After a successful games, Harry closed the Paralympics-style event with a speech in which he said: “Your mission to heal and grow has been a shining example to us all.
“You’ve shown us the power in not defining people by assumption, their backstory or past pain, but rather instead on their ability, how they show up, and who they are in the present.”
And Harry appeared to become tearful as he described meeting a member of the Canadian team, Master Corporal James Gendron, who was preparing to play the bagpipes at the games, stirring memories of his own role at memorial services, known as ramp ceremonies.
“In Afghanistan, he played 63 ramp ceremonies for 63 caskets, for 63 souls, for 63 families. For four years after that last ceremony he couldn’t touch them. This week he wasn’t even sure whether he could bring himself to play them. But he did.”
Chris Jackson/Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation
For Harry and Meghan, Invictus has been a return to their best after a difficult year in which their Spotify deal ended after just one show and Harry’s memoir, Spare, was ridiculed.
For William, his visit to America marks the latest chapter in his ongoing efforts to build, through Earthshot, what could become a career defining project that stamps his legacy on the world.
Jack Royston is Newsweek‘s chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.
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