Let's save the last pristine continent

Let's go south.

All of you are actually going south.

This is the direction of south, this way,

and if you go 8,000 kilometers

out of the back of this room,

you will come to as far south

as you can go anywhere on Earth,

the pole itself.

Now I am not an explorer.

I'm not an environmentalist.

I'm actually just a survivor,

and these photographs

that I'm showing you here are dangerous.

They are the ice melt
of the South and North Poles.

And ladies and gentlemen,

we need to listen to what
these places are telling us,

and if we don't, we will end up

with our own survival situation

here on planet Earth.

I have faced head on these places,

and to walk across a melting ocean of ice

is without doubt
the most frightening thing

that's ever happened to me.

Antarctica is such a hopeful place.

It is protected by the Antarctic Treaty,

signed in 1959.

In 1991, a 50-year agreement

was entered into

that stops any exploitation in Antarctica,

and this agreement could be altered,

changed, modified, or even abandoned

starting in the year 2041.

Ladies and gentlemen,

people already far up north
from here in the Arctic

are already taking advantage

of this ice melt,

taking our resources from areas

already that have been covered in ice

for the last 10, 20, 30,000,

100,000 years.

Can they not join the dots

and think, "Why is the ice
actually melting?"

This is such an amazing place,

the Antarctic, and I have worked hard

for the last 23 years on this mission

to make sure that what's happening

up here in the North

does never happen, cannot happen

in the South.

Where did this all begin?

It began for me at the age of 11.

Check out that haircut. It's a bit odd.

And at the age of 11, I was inspired

by the real explorers

to want to try to be the first
to walk to both poles.

I found it incredibly inspiring

that the idea of becoming a polar traveler

went down pretty well
with girls at parties

when I was at university.

That was a bit more inspiring.

And after years, seven
years of fundraising,

seven years of being told no,

seven years of being told
by my family to seek counseling

and psychiatric help,

eventually three of us found ourselves

marching to the south geographic pole

on the longest unassisted march

ever made anywhere on Earth in history.

In this photograph,
we are standing in an area

the size of the United States of America,

and we're on our own.

We have no radio communications,

no backup.

Beneath our feet,

90 percent of all the world's ice,

70 percent of all the world's fresh water.

We're standing on it.

This is the power of Antarctica.

On this journey, we faced
the danger of crevasses,

intense cold,

so cold that sweat turns
to ice inside your clothing,

your teeth can crack,

water can freeze in your eyes.

Let's just say it's a bit chilly.

And after 70 desperate days,
we arrive at the South Pole.

We had done it.

But something happened to me
on that 70 day journey in 1986

that brought me here, and it hurt.

My eyes changed color

in 70 days through damage.

Our faces blistered out.

The skin ripped off
and we wondered why.

And when we got home,
we were told by NASA

that a hole in the ozone
had been discovered

above the South Pole,

and we walked underneath it

the same year it had been discovered.

Ultraviolet rays down, hit the ice,

bounced back, fried out the eyes,

ripped off our faces.

It was a bit of a shock,

and started me thinking.

In 1989, we now head north.

Sixty days, every step away
from the safety of land

across a frozen ocean.

It was desperately cold again.

Here's me coming in from washing

naked at minus-60 Celsius,

and if anybody ever says to you,

"I am cold,"

if they look like this, they are cold,

definitely.

(Applause)

And a thousand kilometers,

a thousand kilometers, away
from the safety of land,

disaster strikes.

The Arctic Ocean melts beneath our feet

four months before it ever had in history,

and we're a thousand
kilometers from safety.

The ice is crashing around us, grinding,

and I'm thinking, "Are we going to die?"

But something clicked
in my head on this day,

as I realized we, as a world,

are in a survival situation,

and that feeling has never gone away

for 25 long years.

Back then, we had to march or die.

And we're not some TV survivor program.

When things go wrong for us,

it's life or death,

and our brave African-American Daryl,

who would become the first American
to walk to the North Pole,

his heel dropped off from frostbrite

200 clicks out.

He must keep going, he does,

and after 60 days on the ice,

we stood at the North Pole.

We had done it.

Yes, I became the first person in history

stupid enough to walk to both poles,

but it was our success.

And sadly, on return home,

it was not all fun.

I became very low.

To succeed at something's often harder

than actually making it happen.

I was empty, lonely,
financially destroyed.

I was without hope,

but hope came in the form
of the great Jacques Cousteau,

and he inspired me to take on

the 2041 mission.

Being Jacques, he gave me
clear instructions:

engage the world leaders,

talk to industry and business,

and above all, Rob, inspire young people,

because they will choose the future

of the preservation of Antarctica.

For the world leaders, we've been
to every Earth World Summit,

all three of them,
with our brave yacht "2041,"

twice to Rio, once in '92, once in 2012,

and for the Earth Summit in Johannesburg,

we made the longest overland voyage

ever made with a yacht,

13,000 kilometers around
the whole of southern Africa

doing our best to inspire
over a million young people in person

about 2041 and about their environment.

For the last 11 years,

we have taken over a thousand people,

people from industry and business,
women and men from companies,

students from all over the world,

down to Antarctica,

and during those missions,

we've managed to pull out

over 1,500 tons of twisted metal
left in Antarctica.

That took eight years,
and I'm so proud of it because

we recycled all of it back here
in South America.

I have been inspired
ever since I could walk

to recycle by my mum.

Here she is, and my mum,

my mum is still recycling,
and as she is in her 100th year.

Isn't that fantastic.

(Applause)

And when -- I love my mum.

(Laughter)

But when mum was born,

when mum was born,
the population of our planet

was only 1.8 billion people,

and talking in terms of billions,

we have taken young people
from industry and business

from India, from China.

These are game-changing nations,

and will be hugely important

in the decision about

the preservation of the Antarctic.

Unbelievably, we've engaged
and inspired women

to come from the Middle East,

often for the first time
they've represented

their nations in Antarctica.

Fantastic people, so inspired.

To look after Antarctica,

you've got to first engage people

with this extraordinary place,

form a relationship, form a bond,

form some love.

It is such a privilege
to go to Antarctica,

I can't tell you.

I feel so lucky,

and I've been 35 times in my life,

and all those people who come with us

return home as great champions,

not only for Antarctica,

but for local issues
back in their own nations.

Let's go back to where we began,

the ice melt of the North and South Poles,

and it's not good news.

NASA informed us six months ago

that the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf

is now disintegrating.

Huge areas of ice

-- Look how big Antarctica is
even compared to here --

Huge areas of ice are breaking off

from Antarctica,
the size of small nations.

And NASA have calculated

that the sea level will rise,

it is definite,

by one meter in the next hundred years,

the same time my mum
has been on planet Earth.

It's going to happen, and I've realized

that the preservation of Antarctica

and our survival here on Earth are linked.

And there is a very simple solution.

If we are using more renewable energy

in the real world,

if we are being more efficient
with the energy here,

running our energy mix in a cleaner way,

there will be no financial reason

to go an exploit Antarctica.

It won't make financial sense,
and if we manage our energy better,

we also may be able to slow down,

maybe even stop,

this great ice melt that threatens us.

It's a big challenge, and what
is our response to it?

We've got to go back one last time,

and at the end of next year,

we will go back to the
south geographic pole,

where we arrived 30 years ago on foot,

and retrace our steps of 1,600 kilometers,

but this time only using
renewable energy to survive.

We will walk across those icecaps

which far down below are melting,

hopefully inspiring some
solutions on that issue.

This is my son, Barney.

He is coming with me.

He is committed to walking
side by side with his father,

and what he will do is
to translate these messages

and inspire these messages

to the minds of future young leaders.

I'm extremely proud of him.

Good on him, Barney.

Ladies and gentlemen,

a survivor, and I'm good,

a survivor sees a problem

and doesn't go, "Whatever."

A survivor sees a problem
and deals with that problem

before it becomes a threat.

We have 27 years

to preserve the Antarctic.

We all own it.

We all have responsibility.

The fact that nobody owns it maybe means

that we can succeed.

Antarctica is a moral line in the snow,

and on one side of that line
we should fight,

fight hard for this one beautiful,
pristine place left alone on Earth.

I know it's possible.

We are going to do it,

and I'll leave you with
these words from Goethe.

I've tried to live by them.

"If you can do,

or dream you can,

begin it now,

for boldness has genius,

power, and magic in it."

Good luck to you all.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)