Opinion

‘Every day that passes is a day wasted’: David Attenborough’s climate change warning

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“If we don’t act now, it will be too late.” This is Sir David Attenborough’s warning ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

He said the richest nations have “a moral responsibility” to help the world’s poorest.

And it would be “really catastrophic” if we ignored his problems, he told me in an interview with BBC News.

“Every day that goes by without doing something about it is a day wasted,” he said.

Sir David and I were chatting at Kew Gardens in London while filming a new series, “The Green Planet”, which will be shown next year on the BBC.

Our conversation ranged from the latest climate science topics to the importance of COP26 and the pace of your professional life.

The UN climate science panel recently concluded that it is “unambiguous” that human activity is raising global temperatures.

And Sir David said that this proved that he and others weren’t making “noise about nothing” and that the risks of a warmer world were real.

“What climate scientists have been saying for 20 years, and what you and I have been reporting, is the reality: we weren’t making false alarms.”

But he said the report has not convinced everyone and that they are acting as a brake on efforts to combat 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 a shame that there was that forest fire that totally destroyed, incinerated that village, but it’s a… isolated case’.”

“Especially if it’s going to cost money in the short term, the temptation is to deny the problem and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“But with each passing month, it becomes more and more indisputable that the changes on the planet for which we are responsible ​​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 by 2030.

That’s why the next few years are described as “the defining decade” and why the COP26 negotiations are so crucial to putting the world on a safer path now.

As things stand, emissions should continue to increase rather than begin to fall, and Sir David was sounding more exasperated than I had ever heard before.

“If we don’t act now, it will be too late,” he said. “We have to do this now.”

We talked about the issue of responsibility, which is highly controversial and will be of great importance at the conference. Developing countries have for years accused the richest nations, which were the first to start polluting the atmosphere, of failing to do their part against global warming.

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 $100 billion (BRL 560 billion) a year for low-carbon development and to build stronger defenses against more violent climate has not yet been fulfilled – reaching that total will be a key test of whether COP26 will be successful or not.

For Sir David, this is one of the most troubling challenges, and he says it would be “really catastrophic” if threats to poorer nations were ignored.

“It is likely that entire parts of Africa will become unviable – people will simply have to move because of the advancing deserts and rising heat, and where will they go?”

Many of them will try to enter Europe.

“We say, ‘Oh, it has nothing to do with us’ and fold our arms?”

“We caused this – our type of industrialization is one of the main factors in producing this climate change. So we have a moral responsibility.”

“Even if we hadn’t caused this, we would have a moral responsibility to do something about thousands of men, women and children who have lost everything, everything. Can we just say goodbye and say it’s none of our business?”

Finally, I asked about his hectic workload at age 95 — from filming documentaries to speaking at the G7 summit, the UN Security Council and the Earthshot Duke of Cambridge Award.

“I don’t plan far ahead – like you said, I’m 95. How long can you go on? It’s not in our gift to say these things or know these things. All I know is if I wake up tomorrow and feel like I can to do a decent day’s work, then I will do it very well and I will be grateful.”

“And the day will come when I’m going to get out of bed and say, I don’t think I can do this. Who knows when it’s going to be? I don’t know.”

After watching him film for five hours straight, and remaining not only focused but also in good spirits, I suggested that he still loved what he was doing.

“At the moment, I think it would be a waste of opportunity to just give up and not do the things that I think are very important and that I’m well placed for.”

And the next important appointment on Attenborough’s agenda? Nothing less than speaking, virtually or in person, for what will be the biggest gathering of global leaders on British soil: COP26, in just a few days (starting October 31).

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