Harvard Medical School honored Prince Charles with the Global Environmental Citizen Award in New York last week, recognizing his decades of work promoting environmental sustainability.

But the prince of Wales drew flak from environmental activists, including Britain’s Green Party and the country’s environment secretary, for contributing to global warming by flying to New York, according to British news reports.

Referencing the criticism, Charles opened his speech by joking, “I must warn you that I am in fact a video recording. I have only made a ‘virtual’ flight across the Atlantic and am ‘virtually’ half-dead and only ‘virtually’ royal.”

The director of the Medical School center that presented the award, Eric S. Chivian ’64, later called the environmentalists’ criticisms of Charles “a rather low blow that really missed the point of the entire award.”

“He’s really been an environmental champion, and rather than focus on his flight, they should have focused on his achievements,” Chivian said in an interview yesterday.

Former Vice President Al Gore ’69, last year’s winner, introduced Charles before helping present the award. Gore praised the prince for his efforts to raise awareness about environmental protection.

“Prince Charles has been a forward-thinker on environmental issues since the 1970s, on issues ranging from sustainable agriculture to climate change,” Gore said, according to published remarks. “I have always been impressed by his ability to understand complex global issues and his deep commitment to solve the pressing issues facing our world.”

The award is given annually by the Center for Health and the Global Environment, a division of Harvard Medical School.

The center cited the Prince’s public advocacy for environmental causes, such as sustainable organic farming, and his work in “advocating and encouraging corporate action” on environmental issues, according to the event’s program.

“I think his work in sustainable agriculture has been his most significant contribution,” Chivian said. “He’s really been a major figure worldwide in these efforts, and the more we learned about his work, the more we were convinced that he was the right person for our tenth anniversary award.”

The annual award was created in 2001. Past winners include actor Harrison Ford, primatologist Jane Goodall, and Edward O. Wilson, one of Harvard’s 21 University professors.

—Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.