The heir to the British throne told a black-tie dinner in London that rainforests "are the world's lifebelt", acting as the "world's air conditioning system" and helping store the largest body of flowing water on the planet.

Stopping deforestation, which he estimated was occurring at the rate of about a football pitch every four seconds, was the most cost-effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming, he said.

"We must mobilise ourselves, indeed the whole world, with that real sense of wartime urgency and resolve to act together," the prince said.

Prince Charles is the founder of the Rainforest Project, a charitable foundation set up in 2007 to highlight the value of the world's rainforests and try to find solutions to deforestation.

He is a dedicated environmental campaigner, although his views have sometimes got him into hot water, notably last month when he said genetically modified food could be the "biggest disaster environmentally of all time".

Des Turner, the deputy who heads the House of Commons' science committee, condemned the remarks, comparing the prince to the Luddites, a nineteenth century English group of textile workers who protested against mechanisation.

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