“There is no going back – no matter what we do now, it’s too late to avoid climate change”
David Attenborough has offered world leaders a stark warning on climate change.
Speaking to the United Nations’ Security Council (UNSC) session on climate at the invitation of Boris Johnson, the TV legend said he did not “envy” the situation world leaders were dealing with.
“Please make no mistake – climate change is the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced.”
“We have left the stable and secure climatic period that gave birth to our civilisations.
“There is no going back – no matter what we do now, it’s too late to avoid climate change and the poorest, the most vulnerable, those with the least security, are now certain to suffer.”
The UK is currently chairing the UN Security Council.
Boris Johnson opened the virtual summit by saying that dealing with climate change was of “paramount importance” to global security, adding that it was causing insecurity “from the communities uprooted by extreme weather and hunger, to warlords capitalising on the scramble for resources”.
The UN’s COP26climate summit is set to take place in November in Glasgow, with David Attenborough calling it “the last opportunity to make the necessary change” to save the planet.
He said: “If we bring emissions down with sufficient vigour we may yet avoid the tipping points that will make runaway climate change unstoppable.
“In November this year, at COP26 in Glasgow, we may have our last opportunity to make the necessary step-change.
“If we objectively view climate change and the loss of nature as worldwide security threats – as indeed they are – then we may yet act proportionately and in time.”
Last week, Attenborough opened up about the most heartbreaking moment of his career.
“I suppose the most obvious one that I remember particularly vividly, of course, is the first time when I went to a coral reef,” he told Cel Spellman on WWF’s Call of the Wild podcast.
“I thought I was going to dive in, in eastern Australia on the Barrier Reef, and start seeing the most marvellous, beautiful, extraordinary, wonderful wonderland. It was a cemetery. It was just white, that coral. And we were responsible.”
