The Duke of Cambridge will fire out Cop26 quiz questions when he appears on a special edition of BBC Newscast to discuss climate change.

William was pictured being interviewed by Newscast’s Adam Fleming at Kensington Palace, in the run up to the inaugural Earthshot Prize award ceremony this Sunday.

The 30-minute one-to-one conversation will be broadcast on TV and as a podcast on Thursday, with Fleming promising it would feature a quiz.

The BBC said William hosted the quiz and tested presenter Fleming, who is covering the talks in Glasgow in his role as BBC News’ chief political correspondent, on his knowledge of the UN climate change conference.

It follows a Newscast quiz Fleming held with president of the summit Alok Sharma on Cop26’s confusing acronyms in a previous episode.

The duke, smiling broadly, looked relaxed in a blue open-necked shirt as he sat in an antique-style armchair, holding a card with the Newscast logo.

In front of the duke and the presenter were two Newscast branded mugs.

Fleming tweeted: “EXCITING! The Duke of Cambridge will be on #BBCNewscast on Thursday to talk about @EarthshotPrize and @COP26. (And of course there’s a quiz.)”

Newscast is billed by the BBC as a “lighthearted discussion of the week’s political events”.

Fleming and the duke also sat down to watch excerpts from the BBC series The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet together.

William’s ambitious £50 million Earthshot initiative aims to find solutions to the planet’s problems throughout the next decade.

The winners in the five categories this year will each receive £1 million to develop their projects after being picked by a judging panel.

William and the Duchess of Cambridge are attending the star-studded ceremony, hosted by Clara Amfo and Dermot O’Leary, at Alexandra Palace in London on Sunday.

Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and KSI are among those performing – and Dame Emma Thompson, Emma Watson, David Oyelowo and Mo Salah will be handing out the awards.

Cop26 is the deadline by which countries are expected to bring forward more ambitious plans, under a five-year cycle, to get the world on track to meet the Paris goals.

The 2015 Paris Agreement commits countries to keeping temperature rises to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit them to 1.5C – beyond which the most dangerous climate impacts will be felt.

The conference begins in Glasgow on October 31.

BBC Newscast: the Prince William interview airs on Thursday October 14 on BBC One at 11:35pm, and on the BBC News Channel and BBC iPlayer. It will also be available on BBC Sounds and BBC 5 Live.