Prince Charles urges rainforest funding

By Paul Taylor

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Prince Charles called on Thursday for a global fund to preserve tropical rainforests from destruction.

"In the simplest of terms, we have to find a way to make the forests worth more alive than dead," Prince Charles told the European Parliament in an address.

"The doomsday clock of climate change is ticking ever faster towards midnight", he said.

He called for a public-private partnership of banks, insurance companies and pension funds alongside international financial institutions to provide financial incentives to combat deforestation taking place on a massive scale.

Prince Charles said the burning of rainforests, which he called "the planet's air-conditioning system", was responsible for a big proportion of greenhouse gases, blamed for global warming as well as the loss of water and plant life.

Every year, 20 million hectares of forest, equivalent to the area of England, Wales and Scotland, was destroyed, he said.

He said he was encouraged some business chiefs and public opinion were now willing to consider more radical action and lifestyle changes than governments dared to propose.

In a resolutely pro-European speech, he praised last month's European Commission proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions and promote renewable energy and biofuels, and said governments were still not moving fast enough to meet the challenge.