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Britain's Prince Charles proposes new initiative to help environmental projects

Xinhua, November 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

Britain's Prince Charles on Thursday proposed a new initiative to guarantee financing for small-scale environmental projects, hours after his arrival in Valletta, Malta for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM).

His vision for a Commonwealth Green Finance Facility sets out cost efficient and effective guarantees and credit enhancement for green projects that struggle to access finance. The program will seek investment from sovereign wealth funds and pension funds.

Addressing delegates at the concluding session of the Commonwealth Business Forum, Prince Charles said, when dealing with projects that aim to tackle some of the critical challenges worldwide, much of the problem is that they are small and risky for investors.

"Finding ways to scale up and aggregate these developments is therefore a vital part of the solution," he said.

The 10th Commonwealth Business Forum, which took place from Nov. 24 to 26, brought together 1,300 business leaders from around 80 countries, including 21 heads of government. The conference aimed to create new investment opportunities and increase the involvement of the private sector to bring about sustainable economic growth.

The Forum came days before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting where leaders will issue a joint statement on climate change that is expected to influence the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) outcome.

"We look towards Paris and an agreement that will determine the survival of our species and all of those that share this precious planet with us," Prince Charles said.

Stressing the critical importance of the Commonwealth's contribution to next month's Paris deliberation on climate change, the Prince of Wales said: "The Commonwealth, its members and businesses have a huge role to play.

"We do have the responsibility to act now, to seize this opportunity to build a truly resilient future and I am sure that the Commonwealth, and those of you here today, will play a critical and leading part in this endeavour." Endit