A "mayday" alert to curb greenhouse gas emissions has been issued by Prince Charles at a climate summit of more than 1,000 business leaders.

"This is an emergency we face", he said, adding that the time for discussions was over.

Delegates attending the event, hosted by the Prince of Wales, pledged to take action on their companies' carbon emissions.

Organisers hope the commitments will trigger a concerted effort within the UK business community to deliver a low-carbon economy.

"The crisis of climate change is far too urgent and discussion simply isn't enough," the Prince of Wales told the May Day Business Summit on Climate Change at St James's Palace.

"When I was serving in the Royal Navy... 'mayday, mayday, mayday' was the distress call used in cases of emergencies," he recalled. "And this is an emergency that we face.

"The reason we are all here is because if the scientific consensus is right, we need to act very rapidly indeed."

He urged the business leaders to make firm commitments to cut carbon dioxide emissions over the next 12 months.

More than 1,000 companies pledged to work with employees, suppliers and customers to reduce their carbon footprints.

In March, the Government published its draft Climate Change Bill which proposes a legally binding target to cut the UK's 1990 levels of CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.

In Australia, a World Vision study suggested that the country's corporate community was not doing enough to alleviate poverty in the Asia-Pacific region.

Supported by an Australian business alliance including the ANZ Bank and Visy Industries, the study warns poverty in neighbouring countries will make some businesses less viable.

It says while companies were generally supportive of social investment, few were combating poverty in their closest export markets.

It also found that big businesses were ignorant of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals that aim to halve world poverty by 2015.