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Charles’ concerns will be aired in a new ITV documentary alongside broadcaster Steve Backshal
Tony JonesThursday 04 December 2025 00:01 GMT
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King Charles has expressed frustration at humanity’s handling of the climate crisis, warning that he does not want future generations to inherit a "ghastly legacy of horror".
These concerns are aired in a new ITV documentary, where broadcaster Steve Backshall retraces significant moments from the King’s formative 1975 trip to the Canadian Arctic, underscoring the region's escalating vulnerability to climate change.
In the programme, Charles also reflected on the "very peculiar" phenomenon where scientific conclusions are widely accepted as "truth" on numerous topics, yet regarding climate change, "it is not so apparently simple".
Backshall visited Charles at Buckingham Palace to delve into his experiences from April 1975, when, aged 26, he dived under the ice, raced on a snowmobile, ate raw seal liver and rode on a dog sled.
The adventurer’s documentary further explores the devastating effects of climate change and pollution on Arctic glaciers, wildlife, and indigenous populations over the five decades since Charles’s original journey.
open image in galleryThe King Charles during his visit to Chatfield Health Care to find out more about the services and support they provide to veterans (Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA) (PA Wire)In the 90-minute documentary, Steve Backshall’s Royal Arctic Challenge, the King, apparently commenting on the response to the climate crisis, tells the presenter: “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.
“These things are rescuable, but it seems 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 says later: “We have to believe that it is still possible. Because you have to have hope. But to provide that hope you have to take the action.
“I mean, I, all I can do is behind the scenes. But I mean, it, it can get very frustrating, to say the least.”
Five years before his trip to the Canadian arctic, Charles gave a landmark speech to the Countryside Steering Committee for Wales, on February 19, 1970, in which he warned about the problems of plastic waste, chemicals discharged into rivers, and air pollution caused by factories, cars and planes.
In the documentary Backshall joins a research scientist studying pollution in Arctic seabirds, and who examines the stomach contents of two dead short tailed shearwaters, birds that spend much of their life at sea, and finds pieces of plastic.
open image in galleryBackshall visited Charles at Buckingham Palace to delve into his experiences from April 1975, when, aged 26, he dived under the ice, raced on a snowmobile, ate raw seal liver and rode on a dog sled (Adam Gasson/PA)Backshall also visits the Coronation Glacier and chats to an expert who uses satellite images to plot how it has melted, retreating about 0.6 miles in the last 50 years.
Backshall says in the documentary: “The only place that climate change becomes an absolute reality is a glacier like this.
“Where I am standing right now, within a decade or so all of this ice is going to be gone and this mighty glacier, one of the most beautiful places you could ever seem is being affected by our world, our life, our choices.”
Since his speech in 1970, the King, when Prince of Wales, worked to help develop solutions to climate change and raised awareness about a range of environmental issues, from over-fishing to the threat facing rainforests.
Speaking to Backshall at the palace, Charles speaks about the legacy that may be left to the “younger generation”.
“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.”
There are lighter moments in the documentary, when Charles tells the story of how, after diving under the ice, he emerged wearing a bowler hat.
The King said: “…I thought it would be rather fun coming back up with the hat on and… a chance to fool around.”
Charles is taken down memory lane when he is shown footage of him eating raw seal liver – a traditional food source for indigenous people.
“It took some time to persuade my gullet to work to swallow it,” he said.
He added: “And then all the people who were with me, when I turned around to say, why don’t they come and taste some, they had all disappeared.”
Steve Backshall’s Royal Arctic Challenge airs on December 15 at 9pm on ITV1.
