Each Day Without Climate Action Is ‘A Day Wasted’: UK’s Attenborough

London: British naturalist David Attenborough warned world leaders on Tuesday it would be too late to tackle climate change if a U.N. climate summit in Scotland does not succeed, and said richer nations had a moral responsibility to act.
Britain has cast the United Nations COP26 climate conference which begins in Glasgow on Oct. 31 as the last big chance to slow rising temperatures, and hopes to persuade leaders to adopt tougher climate targets.

Mr Attenborough, 95, told the BBC it would be “really catastrophic” if richer nations failed to support poorer ones, and time was running out.

“Every day that goes by in which we don’t do something about it is a day wasted,” he said. “If we don’t act now, it’ll be too late.”

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The U.N. said on Monday greenhouse gas concentrations had hit a record last year and the world was “way off track” in capping rising temperatures.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “touch and go” as to whether COP26 would succeed in securing the requirements needed to limit the rise in the average global temperature to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Mr Attenborough said leading nations had a duty to help poorer countries because industrialisation had been one of the major factors in driving climate change. He warned that whole parts of Africa would become unliveable.

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Raging fires in Australia and the United States were still being dismissed by some as one-off incidents, he said, even though extreme weather events had shown climate scientists were correct to have been warning about rising temperatures in the last 20 years.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity,  that is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.