It was sold as a frank discussion about climate change between the most popular man on the planet and the most powerful man on the planet.

But in reality, When Attenborough Met Obama, which aired on the ABC on Tuesday evening, was nothing more than a feel-good love fest, full of vacuous platitudes about the wonders of the natural world, and some deft presidential sidesteps around the real issue.

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It was love at first sight for Sir David Attenborough, who was celebrating his 89th birthday on the day of the interview. He giggled like a schoolgirl as the Great Man gave him the tour of the White House grounds, telling him about how much he likes nature.

The birthday boy made obliging noises of wonder and interest.

When it came time to talk, POTUS (The President of the United States) took control, and the conversation was uplifting, ornamental and, above all, vague.

David Attenborough had a crack, but Obama was too smooth. Photo: AAP

Obama referred to the earth as a ‘blue marble’; Attenborough repeatedly used the word ‘treasure’. The conversation drifted airily from the Great Barrier Reef to the Serengeti to birth rates in the developing world.

The real issue – carbon dioxide emissions, and how the US plans to reduce them – was barely mentioned.

To be fair to Attenborough, it was Obama who avoided the subject (or saw that it was edited out of the final cut). The first time the respected wildlife filmmaker brought up the need to invest in renewable energy, Obama somehow managed to immediately steer the conversation to a discussion about conserving the Serengeti in Kenya, silencing the old naturalist with his soaring description of the great migration.

“It’s like going back into the Garden of Eden when you see the wildebeest and the zebras,” he said.

The conversation then moved on to overpopulation, a subject which may be relevant in parts of the developing world, but is hardly the most pressing issue in the US, where population growth is 0.7 per cent and falling.

It then moved smoothly on to that platitude magnet of platitude magnets, social media.

Later, Attenborough pushed the issue of carbon emissions again with a direct challenge for the President.

“Supposing you said, ‘In 10 years the United States will organise the world and energise the world to find a solution, to find a way of producing energy with no problems’, that is to say exploiting sunshine … and finding ways of storing energy. Because if you did that, so many of the problems would be solved.”

Obama’s reply was noncommittal.

“Well, that’s what we’re gonna be shooting for. We’ve made enormous investments … we doubled our investment in clean energy here in the United States. I just last year came back from China with an agreement from the Chinese to work with us on emissions. But we’re not moving as fast as we need to.”

He’s cool, but is he serious? Photo: AAP

He then said the world needs to acts together. That could be read as a challenge to reluctant nations like Australia, but sounded more like a child crying “I’ll only do it if everyone else does”.

That was as meaty as it got. No discussion of how much the US must reduce its emissions to avert the worst. No discussion of the political obstacles that are preventing meaningful action.

It was, in other words, a public relations exercise. Of course it was. And in Obama’s defence, perhaps he hopes his nice-sounding words will soften the ground for some real policy.

That the President wants to do something about climate change seems beyond doubt. Whether he can do something is another question. The business lobby in the US is probably more powerful than any business lobby in any democratic nation anywhere on this blue marble. And the US business lobby is, by and large, opposed to meaningful action on climate change.

But it’s not just business that stands in the way. The Republicans, who currently control the US federal lower house, are even more hostile to climate change action than their right-of-centre counterparts in Australia. And so far, all but two of the Republican presidential candidates for the 2016 election are either climate change sceptics, or outright deniers.

As Obama was waxing lyrical about the ‘blue marble floating through space’, he was thinking about all of these formidable obstacles.

You could see it in his eyes. He may be charming, he may be breezy, he may even be a progressive at heart; but before all of that, he’s a politician.