Sir David Attenborough has warned that “the moment of crisis has come” and “life-or-death decisions” must be made to tackle climate change.
The renowned naturalist and broadcaster said action has been put off “year after year” but there is no more time to “prevaricate”.
His comments came during an interview with BBC News to launch a year of special coverage by the corporation on the subject of climate change.
READ MORE: Sir David Attenborough set to make climate plea in Edinburgh next year
Sir David said: “We have been putting things off year after year, we have been raising targets and saying ‘Oh well, if do it within the next 20 years…’.
“The moment of crisis has come, we can no longer prevaricate.
“We can’t go on saying ‘but there’s hope’ and leave it to next year – we have to change and we have to change not by appeals to different kinds of optimism but to deliberate, compelling, life-or-death decisions.
Sir David said there has been a huge change in public opinion towards tackling climate change, in particular among young people.
The 93-year-old veteran TV presenter said this must force governments to take action to tackle climate change.
He added: “We have to realise that this is not playing games, this is not just having nice little debates and arguments, then coming away with a compromise.
“This is an urgent problem that has to be solved.
“And, what is more, we know how to do it – that’s the paradoxical thing, that we are refusing to take steps that we know have to be taken, and every year that passes makes those steps more and more difficult to achieve.”
The BBC has launched “its most ambitious year” of covering the impact of climate change, which will include broadcasting documentaries, podcasts and debates under the Our Planet Matters banner.
READ MORE: Sir David Attenborough warns climate change will cause great 'social unrest'
As part of project, BBC News will introduce new programmes across its channels, including Climate Check for BBC Weather, a weekly global climate podcast from BBC World Service, and a show with presenter Simon Reeve exploring the Amazon rainforest.
In the trailer to his new film, titled David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet, Sir David also warned that “human beings have overrun the world”.
As well as highlighting some of the issues that climate change poses, he also explores some of the potential solutions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel