COP21: David Attenborough challenges scientists to come up with climate change solutions

Sir David Attenborough has challenged scientists to come up with ways of making affordable energy from renewable resources within the next decade. He warned, "We are in for disaster if we don't."

Speaking ahead of the United Nations climate change summit COP21, the beloved naturalist said it was vital that solutions to climate change were found, but said it was not out of reach.

"If you can put a man on the moon in 10 years, we can surely do that," the 89-year-old broadcaster told Sky News. He adding that a universal plan where the scientific brains got together to work out a road map and solve where the difficulties are was required.

"If we could find a way of capturing, storing and distributing energy from renewable resources, we could undercut the cost of digging for coal and oil and because we could make it cheaper that source of pollution would disappear within decades," he said.

"It has never in the history of the world been the case that human beings of all kinds have got together and agreed on something," he added. "So certainly it's going to be hugely difficult to get agreement but if we don't, we are in for disaster."

Sir David had previously confessed to being skeptical about global warming being caused by humans, but in a 2006 documentary, The Truth About Climate Change, he argued that the evidence was too overwhelming to ignore.

"I was absolutely convinced this was no part of a normal climatic oscillation which the Earth has been going through and that it was something else," he told The Times.

But after seeing graphs provided by climatologists that demonstrated the link between increasing temperatures and the levels of carbon dioxide he said he became convinced that mankind was playing a role in global warming.

"Now we most certainly have to do so if we're to deal with climate change. It's the biggest challenge we have yet faced," he said when contemplating the future of the planet in the program.