Sir David Attenborough today slapped down Donald Trump over climate change in damning testimony to MPs.

The renowned naturalist and BBC presenter said he was "sorry" the US President has the views he has on nature.

And he said: "One hopes that the electorate will actually respond."

Sir David made the bombshell intervention at a wide-ranging and rare hearing in Parliament.

He told the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee climate change will cause "great social unrest" in just 20 to 30 years' time. He compared climate strikers to the abolition of slavery – and suggested plane tickets should be more expensive to stop people taking holidays.

The 93-year-old said: "I’m okay – you know, for the next decade – I’m okay. And all of us here are okay, because we won’t face the problems that are coming.

“But the problems in another 20, 30 years are really major problems that are going to cause great social unrest and great changes in the way we live.

“In what we eat, in how we live and so on. It’s going to happen.”

But he said he had "hope" in young climate protesters and compared changing opinions to the abolition of slavery.

Sir David made the comments about President Trump when asked about his opinion on climate change "deniers".

He replied: "I think that the voice of criticism and the voice of disbelief should not be stamped on in that sort of way.

"It is very very important that the voices of dissent should have a place where they’re heard and a place where the arguments between the two sides can be worked out in public and deterred and analysed in public. That’s very important."

But emphasising the word "power", he added: "I am sorry there are people who are in power internationally – notably of course the United States, but also in Australia which is extraordinary actually because Australia is already having to deal with some of the most extreme manifestations of climate change – both Australia and America, those voices are clearly heard.

"And one hopes that the electorate will actually respond to those.”

US President Donald Trump said climate change was a "hoax" in 2016 and last year accused climate scientists of having a "political agenda".

And Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison mocked climate protesters in 2017 by brandishing a lump of coal in Parliament and saying "don't be afraid".

Sir David today insisted he was "not a propagandist" against climate change and it was not the BBC's role to be a "campaigning organisation".

But he said when he began work 60 years ago, "nobody thought that human beings would change the climate".

He added: "We now know we are… what is worse of course is that [we are] changing the climate in a way that is irreversible."

"I didn’t wait for public opinion to change. I waited until the facts seemed incontrovertible," he added.

"I only wish I didn’t have to make programmes that propagandising or arguing or polemical.

"I just wish people look at programmes for the natural world for what it is.

“We actually know that people depend upon the natural world for their very sanity and that in moments of crisis in their lives, the natural world is the one place and the one climate in which they can get solace.”

Sir David praised the rise of youth climate strikes – and compared them to changing opinions on slavery in the 19th Century.

He said: "The electors of tomorrow are already making themselves and their voices very very clear.

“And that is a source of great comfort in a way."

He added: "I suppose reflecting on it that there was a time in the 19th Century when it was perfectly acceptable for civilised human beings to think it was morally acceptable to actually own another human being as a slave.

"And somehow or other in the space of I suppose 20 or 30 years the public perception of that totally transformed. By the middle of the 19th Century it was becoming intolerable.

"Now there’s a huge change in public perception of moralities.

"And I suspect we are right now in the beginning of a big change. Young people particularly are the stimulus that’s bringing that about in which members of the public are understanding that to chuck plastic into the ocean is an insult.

"To have the nerve to say 'this is our rubbish, and then we’ll give you money if you could spread it on your land instead of ours in the far east,' is intolerable.

"For some reason or another young people see that very clearly now – and that’s a source of great hope to me."

Sir David also suggested plane tickets should be made more expensive to stop people taking as many holidays.

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