The British monarch, a lifelong environmentalist who has rallied global leaders and institutions to the cause, called for greater mitigation efforts "as fast as we can".
"It's rapidly going backwards," the king said of the current situation, in the feature-length film "Finding Harmony: A King's Vision".
"I've said that for the last 40 years but anyway, there we are," a visibly frustrated Charles noted, adding "I can only do what I can do, which is not very much".
"People don't seem to understand it's not just climate that's the problem it's also biodiversity loss," he continued.
"We're actually destroying our means of survival, all the time. To put that back together again is possible, but we should have been doing it long ago. We've got to do it as fast as we can now."
The king and his wife Queen Camilla were to attend a Windsor Castle screening of the documentary on Wednesday ahead of its worldwide release on Amazon Prime on February 6.
- 'Done my utmost' -
Media were given a preview of the film, which is narrated by British Hollywood star Kate Winslet and billed as revealing the king "as never before".
Filmed over seven months last year and across four continents, it charts Charles' environmentalism down the decades, alongside a history of global efforts to tackle climate change and ecological destruction.
Utilising 75 years of archive footage, the documentary spotlights his charity, the King's Foundation, and its work around sustainability at Dumfries House, Scotland, which has inspired similar projects worldwide.
The foundation made the film in collaboration with production companies Amazon MGM Studios and Passion Planet.
It focuses on Charles's environmental "harmony" philosophy and his view that "we are actually nature ourselves, we are a part of it, not apart from it".
As well as interviewing experts, campaigners, political leaders and the monarch, the filmmakers were given candid access to his Highgrove home in southwest England, among other places.
They captured the king feeding his chickens, collecting eggs and walking the grounds, as well as hosting a summit with indigenous leaders in July.
Among the more poignant moments, Charles laments the loss of wildlife at Highgrove, noting when he first moved in there nearly five decades ago he would hear cuckoos and see grasshoppers.
Climate change 'significantly' worsened southern Africa floods: study
Johannesburg (AFP) Jan 29, 2026 -
Areas of southern Africa received a year's worth of rainfall in just 10 days in January as climate change made devastating floods "significantly more intense", scientists said Thursday.
Torrential downpours since December have left large swathes of Mozambique underwater, affecting more than half a million people and claiming dozens of lives, with damage and losses also reported in neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe.
"Extreme 10-day rainfall events in the region have become significantly more intense due to human-induced climate change," researchers for the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network of scientists said in a report.
The international group assesses the role of climate change in extreme weather events.
Between January 10 and 19, areas of southern Mozambique -- including the severely affected Gaza province -- received upwards of 500 millimetres (20 inches) of rain, the report said.
This was equivalent to more than the usual rainfall for an entire year, it said.
"Human-induced climate change has increased the intensity of such extreme rainfall by about 40 percent," said climatologist Izidine Pinto from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
"The combination of very intense rain over a short period, together with high vulnerability and exposure, led to the worst flooding in Mozambique in 25 years," Pinto said in a press briefing ahead of the report's launch.
The cooling weather phenomenon known as La Nina -- which tends to "produce above-normal rainfall conditions over Southern Africa" -- was in turn responsible for about 22 percent of the rainfall's intensity.
Nearly 140 people have died in Mozambique's floods since October 1, according to its National Disasters Management Institute (INGD), and some areas remain inaccessible by road after rivers burst their banks.
Floodwaters also claimed more than 30 lives in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, causing millions of dollars in damages including in the famed Kruger National Park.
The natural disaster was "a textbook case of climate injustice", said climate science professor Friederike Otto from London's Imperial College.
"The people of South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Eswatini have not contributed to climate change, nor are they profiting from using or selling fossil fuels," she said.
"Yet they are the ones losing their lives, homes and livelihoods."
Court orders Dutch to protect Caribbean island from climate change
The Hague (AFP) Jan 28, 2026 -
The Netherlands "insufficiently" protects the tiny Caribbean territory of Bonaire from climate change, a Dutch court said Wednesday, in what Greenpeace hailed as a "huge breakthrough" for environmental justice.
Residents of the Dutch territory off the coast of Venezuela had teamed up with Greenpeace to sue the Dutch government, demanding "concrete measures" to shield the island from rising waters.
The District Court in The Hague ruled that Bonaire residents were "treated differently from the inhabitants of the European part of the Netherlands without good reason", calling it a violation of their human rights.
It ordered the Netherlands to set binding interim targets within 18 months "for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions across the entire economy".
"The judges really listened to us, and I'm extremely happy about that," Jackie Bernabela, a co-claimant who travelled from Bonaire to be in court, told AFP.
She said islanders had felt like they were being treated like "second-class citizens".
The ruling follows an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice that countries violating their climate obligations were committing an "unlawful" act.
Greenpeace said before the ruling that it regarded Bonaire as the first major test case following the ICJ's opinion.
The campaign group's Netherlands director Marieke Vellekoop described Wednesday's ruling as a "huge breakthrough".
"This is a truly historic victory," she said.
"People on Bonaire are finally getting recognition that the government is discriminating against them and must protect them from extreme heat and rising sea levels."
- 'Unbearable' heat -
The low-lying Netherlands is famous for its protective measures against rising waters, mainly based on an extensive system of barriers and dykes.
But campaigners argued that it was not providing the same protection for its overseas territories such as Bonaire.
They had called for a plan for Bonaire by April 2027 and for the Netherlands to reduce CO2 emissions to zero by 2040 rather than 2050 as agreed at EU level.
The government had argued it was an "autonomous task" of the local authorities to develop a plan to counter the ravages of climate change.
Following the judgment, a spokesperson for the infrastructure ministry said the state was taking the ruling "very seriously" and would study it closely.
"After that, we can say more about the measures the state will take," the spokesperson said.
Campaigners pointed to a survey by Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit showing the sea could swallow as much as a fifth of Bonaire by the end of the century.
Bonaire, a former Dutch colony, became one of three so-called special municipalities of the Netherlands in 2010 along with Saba and St Eustatius.
During court hearings last year, some of the island's 27,000 residents shared their experiences battling rising seas and temperatures.
Bonaire farmer Onnie Emerenciana told judges: "Where we used to work, play, walk, or fish during the day, the heat is now often unbearable."
After the ruling, she said the state could "no longer look away".
"Our lives, our culture and our country are being taken seriously," she said in the statement provided by Greenpeace.
- Equal treatment -
The judges pointed out that Europe and the Caribbean had different climates.
"There is no good reason why measures for the inhabitants of Bonaire, who will be affected by climate change sooner and more severely, should be taken later and less systematically than for the European part of the Netherlands," it added.
The use of courts and other legal avenues to pursue climate litigation has grown rapidly over the past decade, with most lawsuits targeting governments.
Claimants argue a relatively small number of major polluters bear a historic liability for losses caused by droughts, storms and other climate-fuelled extremes.
The ICJ opinion, requested by the United Nations, aimed to clarify international law as it relates to climate change.
In what was largely seen as a win for environmental campaigners, the judges said polluters could be liable for reparations to countries suffering from climate damage.
Greenpeace's Vellekoop said Wednesday's Dutch ruling would have a huge impact on future cases.
"With this ruling in hand, communities have a powerful new asset to hold governments to account," she said.
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