Ian McEwan has shared his hopes for how humankind “will scrape through” amid ongoing climate change fears.

The British author was speaking ahead of the release of his new book, What We Can Know, which is set a hundred years into the future in a UK partially submerged by rising seas.

Human activities are causing world temperatures to rise, posing serious threats to people and nature. Things are likely to worsen but scientists argue urgent action can still limit the worst effects of climate change.

The Atonement and Enduring Love writer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that nature “comes back” if you stop “doing bad things”.

He said: “I’ve really noticed, over the last 20 years, that although we are deeply worried about climate change – and it doesn’t seem to be getting better at the moment – that across the world, there are just hundreds of pinpoints of light, of little projects of re-wilding, of all kinds of biological movements that are really very hopeful.”

He added that “the power with which nature comes back astounds biologists”, stressing how “extraordinary resilient” animals, fish, sea life and plants are “if you just stop doing bad things to them.”

It is about “finding that balance”, he continued, noting how many people still rely on animals and fish for food.

“So I think human civilization has an element of that too, and we will scrape through.”

What We Can Know, a meditation on how future historians will scrutinise our lives, is set in 2119 and is narrated in part by an academic researcher called Tom Metcalfe, who is in search of a fabled, long-lost poem from the present day.

Metcalfe is living in a world where the lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas with the loss of many plants and species.

In a later interview with the BBC’s World Service, McEwan expanded: “My expectation, or rather hope, is that we will kind of pull through somehow with a lot of damage along the route.

“I imagine someone rather like me, passionate about literature and history, looking back on our time, [will be] filled not only with dismay at the decisions we took or didn’t take, but also with envy, because there are many wonderful things about our civilisation – especially in the first world – that he (Metcalfe) no longer has.”

His ambition with the novel, he said, was to somehow “to bring the past and the future and the present into a kind of dialogue”.

“We know perfectly well what is happening, but somehow collectively we didn’t act or we didn’t act firmly enough.

“So I call it this ‘the derangement’ in the novel.”

The book examines our current era through digital records, while delving into the complex love lives of the main players. The latter half of the book is focused on Vivien, the wife of the famous writer whose lost poem Metcalfe is obsessively trying to locate.

Speaking to Today, McEwan contrasted the contemplative letters of the past – from the likes of Napolean and Darwin – with today’s briefer emails, which may miss deeper personal insights.

He also expressed concerns as well as a little “weariness”, when asked, about censorship, specifically with reference to comedy writer Graham Linehan’s recent arrest for comments made online about trans people.

The Father Ted co-creator was arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence in relation to his posts on X.

Linehan said he was met by five armed officers, sparking a backlash from some public figures and politicians, and inflaming a fierce debate about policing and free speech.

McEwan told Radio 4 he would “expect questions” if an alleged physical threat had been made, but that armed police officers “seems a bit heavy-handed”.

The Booker-winning novelist has previously expressed his opposition to “sensitivity readers”, the practice of hiring someone to read a manuscript before its publication in order to point out things that might be offensive to readers.