PHILANTHROPISTS and foundations should use endowment funds worth billions of pounds to fight climate change, leading environmentalists have urged.
One hundred and sixty award-winning environmentalists from 44 countries issued a declaration urging philanthropic foundations to use their financial clout to back moves to tackle global warming, helping efforts to secure a new international climate treaty.
They made the call ahead of a UN climate summit in New York to drive action on climate change ahead of talks in Paris next year when a new global climate deal will be negotiated.
It is hoped that the billions of pounds held in endowment funds could help tip the scales in favour of climate action, stimulating vital investment in a clean energy future and showing support for an ambitious climate treaty.
In a full-page advertisement published in the International New York Times, the environmentalists urge philanthropic foundations to "deploy their endowments immediately in the effort to save civilisation".
The "environment laureates' declaration on climate change" warns that the world is heading for 4C to 6C of warming as a result of burning coal, oil and gas.
They said they were "terrified we will lose our ability to feed ourselves, run out of potable water, increase the scope for war and cause the very fabric of civilisation to crash as a consequence of the climate change that global overheating will bring about".
But they said they believed that the world's philanthro-pic foundations, "given the scale of their endowments, hold the power to trigger a survival reflex in society".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article