The monarch has shared he does not want to be accused by his grandchildren of failing to act on climate change and leaving them a “ghastly legacy of horror”
12:57, 04 Dec 2025Updated 12:57, 04 Dec 2025
King Charles has spoken candidly about the fears he has for his grandchildren’s future, as he continues to champion climate change initiatives to save the planet from global warming. In a new documentary, the monarch told environmentalist Steve Backshall that he finds it “very frustrating” that scientists’ warnings about climate change still went unheeded, despite the planet being at a “tipping point” for change.
The ITV documentary, titled Steve Backshall’s Royal Arctic Challenge, reflected on then Prince Charles’s 1975 voyage to the Canadian Arctic, where he braved an under ice dive that organisers now admit was more dangerous than his team realised.
The King told Backshall: “These things are rescuable, but it seems very peculiar to me that in other areas everybody takes what the scientists are saying as absolute vital truth, but in this case for some reason or other it is not so apparently simple.”
Reflecting on his lifelong efforts to inform and warn people of the dangers of climate change, Charles added: “You have to just go on trying, I find, because I mind, for what it’s worth, about the younger generations.
“To me, it is not fair to leave them something in a far worse state than I found it, if you know what I mean. The whole point, I have always felt, is to improve it for people, so they don’t have a ghastly legacy of horror to have to deal with. That’s why I spent all these years, because I don’t want to be accused by my grandchildren of not doing anything about it. That is the key.”
Charles went on to call his Arctic expedition in 1975 a “formative experience”, noting how it shaped his passion for fighting for climate change and protecting the environment.
Fifty years on from the King’s trip, Backshall retraced the monarch’s steps in an effort to highlight the devastating impact of climate change. Before he set off, he spoke to Charles about his own journey half a century ago.
Charles reflected on his half hour dive, 30ft under the thick ice with physician and researcher Joseph MacInnis, admitting he is now too old to take on such a challenge.
“I’m afraid I’ve always tended to live life dangerously,” the King chuckled. “Thank God I was young in those days, I could never have survived now. I think I’m too old to go back.”
The King said it was a “fascinating experience”, adding: “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It was amazing in those days. Thank God I saw (the Arctic) as it should be. I learnt a great deal from going there. That’s the tragedy now, that it’s all going so fast. I was very glad I was able to see it and I just want others to witness the same thing.”
As he recalled how the wildlife was unable to adapt to its changing landscape quickly enough, he added: “This is what I’ve been trying to warn about for years. We have forgotten, I think, that we are as well totally connected with nature. The problem is trying to rediscover this link. What we do to nature is fundamentally a disaster for ourselves.”
Steve Backshall’s Royal Arctic Challenge airs on December 15 at 9pm on ITV1.