HSBC, one of the world's leading banks, announced on Wednesday would donate 100 million U.S. dollars from its partnership program to respond to the urgent threat of climate change worldwide.

The HSBC Climate Partnership will be a partnership with the Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Speaking at the London news conference for the launch of the program, HSBC group chairman Stephen Green said, "The HSBC Climate Partnership will achieve something profoundly important, by working with four of the world's most respected environmental organizations and creating a 'green taskforce' of thousands of HSBC employees worldwide, we believe we can tackle the causes and impacts of climate change."

In the coming five years, Green said, HSBC will make responding to climate change central to the bank's business operation.

HSBC's 100 million U.S. dollars donation is said to be aimed at helping to deliver increased capacity, helping the charities to expand across new countries and research sites and increasing their access to more people.

James Leape, Director General of WWF International said, "Climate change, poor management and waste mean that water supplies around the world are more and more stress, and the HSBC program will help WWF work towards better management of global water supplies, improve water security for about 450 million people and reduce the impact of climate change on some of the world's most important rivers, including the Amazon, Ganges, Thames and Yangtze."

The HSBC Climate Partnership is built on the group's previous 50 million-dollar five-year eco-partnership program. The program, which concluded in 2006, saw the group partner with Botanical Gardens Conservation International, Earthwatch, and WWF, saving more than 12,000 plant species from extinction, training 200 scientists, sending 2000 HSBC employees on conservation research worldwide.

Source: Xinhua