UK's Johnson and naturalist Attenborough to make UN climate plea

LONDON: Veteran British naturalist David Attenborough and Prime Minister Boris Johnson will make direct pleas Tuesday to the UN Security Council to take "urgent action" on climate change or face worsening global instability.

Johnson, who is chairing a virtual session of the council on climate and security, will urge members to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change and "take steps to cut global emissions to net zero by 2050", according to his Downing Street office.

The council "is tasked with confronting the gravest threats to global peace and security, and that's exactly what climate change represents," the British leader will say.

"From the communities uprooted by extreme weather and hunger, to warlords capitalising on the scramble for resources -- a warming planet is driving insecurity," he will add.

Johnson is set to stress that helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change and cutting global emissions to net zero will aid the protection of biodiversity as well as prosperity and security.

Attenborough will also make a speech by video to warn of the potential consequences of inaction.

"If we bring emissions down with sufficient vigour we may yet avoid the tipping points that will make runaway climate change unstoppable," he will say.

"If we objectively view climate change and the loss of nature as worldwide security threats -- as indeed, they are -- then we may yet act proportionately and in time."

Britain has committed into law a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and will host the COP26 climate summit in November in the Scottish city of Glasgow.