Climate change: Sir David Attenborough in 'act now' warning
"If we don't act now, it'll be too late." That's
the warning from Sir David Attenborough ahead of the COP26 climate summit in
Glasgow.
The broadcaster says the richest nations have "a moral
responsibility" to help the world's poorest.
And it would be "really catastrophic" if we
ignored their problems, he told me in a BBC News interview.
"Every day that goes by in which we don't do something
about it is a day wasted," he said.
Sir David and I were speaking at Kew Gardens in London
during filming for a new landmark series, The Green Planet, to be aired on BBC1
next year.
Our conversation ranged from the latest climate science to
the importance of COP26 to the pace of his working life.
The UN climate science panel recently concluded that it is
"unequivocal" that human activity is driving up global temperatures.
And Sir David said that proved that he and others had not
been making "a fuss about nothing", and that the risks of a hotter
world are real.
"And every day that goes by in which we don't do
something about it is a day wasted. And things are being made worse".
But he said the report had not convinced everyone and that
they are acting as a brake on efforts to tackle climate change.
"There are still people in North America, there are
still people in Australia who say 'no, no, no, no, of course it's very
unfortunate that there was that forest fire that absolutely demolished,
incinerated that village, but it's a one-off'.
"Particularly if it's going to cost money in the short
term, the temptation is to deny the problem and pretend it's not there.
"But every month that passes, it becomes more and more incontrovertible, the changes to the planet that we are responsible for that are having these devastating effects."
His call for an urgent response reflects the latest scientific assessment that to avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures, global carbon emissions need to be halved no later than 2030.
That's why the coming years are described as "the
decisive decade" and why the COP26 talks are so crucial for getting the
world on a safer path now.
As things stand, emissions are projected to continue rising
rather than starting to fall, and Sir David was sounding more exasperated than
I've heard before.
"If we don't act now, it will be too late," he
said. "We have to do it now."
We turned to the question of responsibility, a highly
contentious issue which will loom large at the conference. Developing countries
have for years accused the richest nations, which were the first to start
polluting the atmosphere, of failing to shoulder their share of the burden.
The argument is that they should be making the deepest cuts
in carbon emissions and providing help to those who need it most. A
long-standing promise of $100bn a year for low carbon development and to build
stronger defences against more violent weather has yet to be fulfilled -
reaching that total will be a key test of whether COP26 succeeds or fails.
For Sir David, this is one of the most worrying challenges,
and he says it would be "really catastrophic" if threats to the
poorest nations were ignored.
"Whole parts of Africa are likely to be unliveable -
people will simply have to move away because of the advancing deserts and
increasing heat, and where will they go? Well, a lot of them will try to get
into Europe.
"Do we say, 'Oh, it's nothing to do with us' and cross
our arms?
"We caused it - our kind of industrialisation is one of
the major factors in producing this change in climate. So we have a moral
responsibility.
"Even if we didn't cause it, we would have a moral
responsibility to do something about thousands of men, women and children
who've lost everything, everything. Can we just say goodbye and say this is no
business of ours?"
Finally I asked about his own hectic workload at the age of
95 - from filming documentaries to addressing the G7 summit, the UN Security
Council and the Duke of Cambridge's Earthshot Prize.
"I don't plan very far ahead - as you say, I'm 95. How
long can you go on? It isn't within our gift to say those things or to know
those things.
"All I know is that if I get up tomorrow and I feel
that I'm able to do a decent day's work, then I shall jolly well do it and be
grateful.
"And the day is going to come when I'm going to get out
of bed and say, I don't think I can do that. When that's going to be, who
knows? I don't."
"At the moment, I feel it would be a waste of an
opportunity just to back out and not do the things I think are very important
to do in which I am well placed to do."
And the next major engagement in the Attenborough diary?
Nothing less than speaking, virtually or in-person, to what's set to be the
largest ever gathering of global leaders on British soil: COP26, in a few days'
time.
Source BBC
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