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".