Prince Charles spent his first audience with Pope Benedict XVI discussing “certain questions of mutual interest” including environmental protection, according to the Vatican.

The Prince was accompanied at the 15 minute reception by his consort, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who was wearing a black dress and black lace mantilla over her hair.

Monday’s meeting was Camilla’s first visit to the Vatican and Prince Charles’ first private audience with a pope since his divorce from Princess Diana and subsequent remarriage to Camilla.

In an address to the Italian parliament earlier in the day, Prince Charles warned of a “new Dark Age” if action was not taken on climate change.

“If we are to bequeath to our children a world that is fit to inhabit, then I fear we must act now," he said.

He added, "What on earth is the point of procrastinating? History will judge us by how we respond to climate change.”

The Prince warned that the world had the choice of bringing about a “Renaissance that led the world towards a genuinely sustainable existence” or allowing “a new Dark Age to sprawl across our future, plunging us on a course towards catastrophe”.