Climate Activist David Attenborough
This section will explore the solutions David Attenborough has proposed to face the aforementioned climate challenges. In his solutions he addresses the adverse effects of climate change both at the local level, with his UK-addressed solutions, and the global level, with his documentaries and UN campaigns.
Documentaries
One of the most impactful initiatives that David Attenborough brings forward in the battle against climate change is his documentaries. He continuously publishes documentaries with the aim to inspire change in people, guide policymaking, and raise awareness about the problems plaguing the environment. He strategically uses the medium of film to make his views widely accessible and memorable.
Attenborough creates visually proactive and stimulating narratives that help visualize complex phenomena. For example, in many of his climate change-oriented documentaries, Attenborough frames climate change through his personal journey and professional life. This personal approach, relating the planet’s transformations over the past 100 years to the evolution of human action and technology, makes the abstract concept of climate change relatable and tangible.
He also uses clear visuals and on-screen text to show key facts, such as the world’s population, carbon levels in the atmosphere, and the amount of wilderness left. These numbers update throughout the film as time passes, allowing viewers to see the rapid pace and scale of environmental change over time. Attenborough directly states, “The natural world is fading. The evidence is all around. It’s happened in my lifetime. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” By connecting the data to his lived experience, he transforms abstract statistics into a relatable narrative, making the scale of environmental change more tangible for the audience.
Moreover, his documentaries adopt a more direct tone about climate change from the beginning, moving beyond the softer, generic messages often found in similar works. This includes more detailed scientific explanations of the links between causes, impacts, and solutions to climate change. By multiplying its messages and stylistic solutions, the film caters to a more heterogeneous audience, offering different “hooks” for engagement. This use of language engages the viewers, allowing for “unobtrusive issues” to climb up to the forefront of viewers’ minds, elevating their importance in agenda-setting circles. Moreover, the medium allows him to blend multiple communication tools, such as scientific data, visual imagery, and ethos, which contribute to higher viewer engagement and impact, resulting in a product and advocacy that go beyond traditional tools of raising awareness.
Three of his documentaries particularly stand out for breaking away from the usual neutrality of nature films: Our Planet, Blue Planet II, and David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. Unlike other documentaries that focus only on the beauty of nature, these films highlight the harsh realities of climate change. They not only raise awareness but also focus on solutions, encouraging viewers to take action.
Focusing on the environmental disruption, species vulnerability, and habitat loss due to human-driven climate change, the Our Planet series was watched by 25 million people in the first month of release. Within the first year (2019), it was played in close to 100 million households. It was subsequently screened to 23,000 businesspeople in 55 different countries with the goal of convincing these private actors to take actions for the environment.
Blue Planet II primarily focused on ocean pollution and warming, delivering a message of urgency and a call to action against the environmental damage caused by human activity. The documentary reached over a billion viewers and sparked a surge in environmental content on streaming platforms like Netflix. This success proved that nature documentaries are commercially viable, encouraging ongoing engagement and action on mitigating climate change. The documentary created the “David Attenborough effect” and resulted in direct policy action: the Barbados Sea Turtle Project. The “David Attenborough effect” will be discussed in the following section of the report, where we analyze the successes of the solutions.
Distinct from the previous two documentaries, A Life on Our Planet focused solely on anthropogenic climate change and was made with the explicit goal of raising awareness about human actions on the planet and climate change. The film focused on Attenborough’s life and his vision statement. It was an extremely personal documentary that aimed to connect with viewers at a personal level. This closeness with the viewership allowed Attenborough to directly present his views on overconsumption, environmental degradation, and renewable energy, which is crucial to understanding his stance. The documentary leveraged Attenborough’s credibility and authority as one of the most trusted individuals in the UK.
Attenborough releases his documentaries to educate the public about climate change and raise awareness of its challenges. By doing so, he wants to encourage viewers to make everyday changes in their lives to mitigate climate change. His ultimate goal is to mobilize public opinion and drive policy change through informed and active citizens.
Collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF): Save Our Wild Isles Campaign
In addition to his documentaries, Attenborough actively collaborates with international conservation groups such as the WWF, Fauna & Flora, and the World Land Trust, all of which are dedicated to protecting threatened ecosystems and conserving biodiversity. These organizations work to preserve critical habitats, prevent species extinction, and promote sustainable land management around the world.
Attenborough’s partnerships with them reflect a cycle of mutual reinforcement. His commitment to stopping environmental degradation draws him to their mission, and in return, they benefit from his public voice, scientific credibility, and global influence. Through these collaborations, he raises awareness, collects funding, and highlights the need to stop environmental decline, strengthening both his message and these organizations’ conservation work.
Throughout his career, David Attenborough and the WWF have collaborated closely both in producing films and starting the subsequent climate campaigns linked to specific documentaries. The most recent successful campaign, proposed and started by Attenborough himself in 2023, is the “Save Our Wild Isles Campaign.” The campaign has garnered over 1.58 billion media reach, more than 12 million views for the TV series, and has resulted in community fund groups raising over £2 million for nature action.
This campaign, which is officially a collaboration with the National Trust, WWF, and RSPB, aims to protect and restore the few remaining natural environments in the United Kingdom. The UK is now considered one of the most nature-depleted countries, with less than half of its original biodiversity remaining. Only around 3% of the UK is effectively protected and managed for nature. The campaign encourages action at home, work, school, and in communities, highlighting inspiring projects and featuring young people sharing stories about protecting nature.
The campaign advocates for nature-friendly farming and restoring wooded landscapes. It pushes for more sustainable farming practices with the goal of increasing farmland biodiversity and recovering the nature the UK has lost throughout the years by strategically planting more trees. It calls for immediate action for the sake of nature, incorporating its advocacy into the daily lives of UK citizens to an extent where leaders cannot ignore the problem. Moreover, the conjoined effort wants to achieve more nature-positive business plans with the incorporation of nature at the heart of decision-making. The campaign aims to implement a nationwide response to the natural emergency, which is deemed crucial to reversing the environmental damage across the UK.
Within the campaign, Attenborough highlights specific strategies for reviving the countryside. Firstly, he advocates for the diversification of farm animals to create a mix of habitats. These diverse animals positively disturb the land, which allows for wildflowers to prosper, helping reverse the land damage after cattle farming. He also emphasizes the importance of reducing pesticide use and limiting how often fields are plowed, as both are crucial steps in protecting old hedgerows and restoring ponds and wildflowers. He adds that this process can be aided by manually planting such hedgerows and wildflowers on margins and meadows.
In addition to farming reform, Attenborough also offers practical advice on restoring the UK’s wooded landscapes. He proposes to create organized plans to plant specific types of trees that withstand harsh environments in mountainous areas. The creation of new and renewed wildlife upstream will then benefit the wildlife and communities living downstream.
The campaign encompasses 26 actions intended to mitigate widespread environmental degradation. These measures are grounded in policy recommendations advocated by Attenborough throughout his documentary.
The goal of the campaign is to gain media attention and emphasize the importance of awareness and collective action on mitigating climate change. The encouragement of collective steps to protect and grow the UK’s wildlife aims to mobilize government entities to take decisive legal action on repopulating the UK with its lost biodiversity.
The campaign is still ongoing, with the website active in showcasing their plans and championing their achievements. Effects are already visible, with the campaign contributing to the return of barn owls at certain farms, which in turn increases mixed habitats.
The People’s Seat
Alongside his collaborations with conservation groups, Attenborough has also used his voice to influence global policymaking directly. One of the most notable examples of this was the launch of The People’s Seat campaign with the United Nations in 2018, ahead of the COP24 climate conference. While campaigns like Save Our Wild Isles aimed to mobilize communities within the UK, The People’s Seat was launched to influence international climate efforts.
The campaign’s core idea was that ordinary people should have a say in decisions about climate change, as these decisions will shape their future. To achieve this, the hashtag #TakeYourSeat was launched to invite individuals worldwide to share their personal experiences of climate change, their concerns about its impact on their communities, and their calls for action from leaders. The online advocacy movement reached 16 million in its first hour on Facebook, subsequently winning the Cannes Lion Awards for PR in 2019.
Concurrently, the campaign involved the appointment of David Attenborough as the “People’s Representative”/“People’s Advocate,” who took the “People’s Seat” at the COP. His task was to deliver a speech known as The People’s Address directly to the conference’s participants, including world leaders and policymakers. This address drew from the messages collected during the first half of the campaign, presenting them as the unified voice of citizens around the world. By combining urgency with hope, his address aimed to remind policymakers that climate change is a human-driven crisis, but one that can still be addressed if immediate action is taken. The speech concluded with video messages from people worldwide, reinforcing its goal of bringing ordinary voices into high-level climate negotiations.
To encourage individual action in addition to influencing global policymaking, the campaign also launched the “Act Now Bot,” a personalized chatbot linked to users’ Facebook profiles. This tool provided tailored behavioral recommendations and later evolved into an app that tracked users’ actions and offered ongoing suggestions aligned with the campaign’s goals. The UN recorded nearly 26 million actions taken by users, all contributing to reduced carbon footprints. This blend of individual behavioral change and global policymaking underscored the campaign’s dual approach.
Attenborough’s decision to lead the People’s Seat campaign was driven by both external opportunities and personal conviction. The campaign was backed by the United Nations, which provided a global platform and access to high-level policymakers. This aligned with his long-standing goal of communicating the urgency of climate action directly to those in power. After decades of documenting environmental change and warning of its consequences, Attenborough saw the campaign as a way to connect public concern with political decision-making. From the UN’s perspective, Attenborough was chosen to lead The People’s Seat campaign because of his professional experience as a broadcaster and environmental advocate, his global reputability, and his ability to communicate complex issues in a personal and relatable way.
IExRAIA Summer Research Program:
This article is an excerpt from a report on David Attenborough produced as part of an RAIA research program on climate leaders. For a full picture of Ruto’s climate leadership, including the sources, read the full report. This project was fully financed by IE University’s IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs.
Author: Giulio Guiducci & Jayveer Gautam
Editor: Réka Baranyai
Project Leads: Roxane de Bergevin & Stefani Obradovic
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