Obama to trek Alaska wilderness on Bear Grylls show

US President Barack Obama will trek through the wilderness of Alaska this week with Bear Grylls on his adventure show, NBC has announced.

Obama is on a three-day tour of Alaska aimed at highlighting the rapid pace of climate change, as part of his administration’s efforts to build support for new legislation significantly capping carbon dioxide emissions from US power stations.

Indeed, the episode of Running Wild with Bear Grylls – to be aired later this year –that he will film will focus on the effects of climate change on Alaska’s natural landscape.

Bear Grylls - a former British special forces soldier - puts celebrities through their paces in remote forests and mountains across the world, "pushing their minds and bodies to the limit to complete their journeys".

Several high profile figures, including actresses Kate Winslet and Kate Hudson, have tested their survival skills on the show, but Obama will become the first president to appear on it.

Obama will this week also become the first sitting US president to visit the Alaskan Arctic, where he will visit foreign ministers from Arctic nations at a conference on climate change.

He is also scheduled to visit glaciers and to meet fishermen and native leaders to discuss rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers and melting permafrost in the sparsely populated north-western US state.

Before his departure for Alaska, Obama announced that he will change the name of Mount MicKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, to its original native Alaskan name – Denali.

Earlier in August, he presented plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from US power stations by nearly a third within 15 years.