The 77-year-old monarch shares his reflections in Steve Backshall’s Royal Arctic Challenge, a program in which Backshall retraces the king’s 1975 journey to the Canadian Arctic — a region now grappling with severe climate impacts.
Throughout the 90-minute documentary, Backshall showcases how drastically the Arctic has changed, while Charles offers his own candid thoughts on the crisis.
A “Peculiar” Reaction to Climate Science
In one segment, Charles comments on how society responds to scientific warnings, noting a troubling inconsistency.
He remarked: “It is very peculiar to me that, you know, 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.”
The king questioned why action has taken so long, adding: “This is the problem, isn’t it? Why is it taking so long? By which time it is almost too late to, to rectify. That’s my great worry about it, because you get to a tipping point. Which is what all the scientists have been talking about.”
King Charles has long been at the forefront of environmental advocacy. His concerns date back decades — most notably to a 1970 speech to the Countryside Steering Committee for Wales, where he warned about plastic pollution, industrial waste entering rivers, and harmful emissions from factories. The issues he highlighted more than 50 years ago remain urgent today.
Reflecting on His Legacy
During a conversation with Backshall at Buckingham Palace, the monarch reflected on his sense of responsibility to future 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,” he said.
“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.”
