The HSBC Group has announced a five-year US$100m programme to help tackle the causes and impacts of climate change.

HSBC is joining forces with The Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and WWF, to form the HSBC Climate Partnership.

Working with four of the world's most respected environmental organisations while creating and mobilising a "green taskforce" of thousands of HSBC employees world-wide, HSBC will tackle the causes and impacts of climate change in a tangible manner.

"The HSBC Climate Partnership is a profound step towards trying to address global climate change and making this commitment pivotal to HSBC's operations globally," Shaun Wallis, HSBC Malta CEO, said. "We, in Malta, will be stepping up our plans locally to help with the environment," he added.

This new partnership will build upon five years of good work done on the group's "Investing in Nature" programme, which was finished last year. This helped train 200 scientists and sent 2,000 HSBC employees on conservation research projects to save 12,000 plant species from extinction.

The new work will focus on four key areas. It will make some of the world's largest cities - Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York and Shanghai - cleaner and greener models for the rest of the world. It will also create "climate champions" across the world, who will participate in field research and return to share their knowledge and experience with their communities.

The partnership will conduct the largest ever field experiment on the world's forests to measure carbon and the effects of climate change. It will also help protect four of the world's major rivers - the Amazon, Ganges, Yangtze and Thames - from the impact of climate change.

The US$100m commitment that HSBC is contributing to the partnership marks the largest ever charitable donation given by a UK-based company. The funds will allow the charities to get more done, in more places, and for more people than they've ever been able to do in the past.