French businesses pledge investment to fight global warming

PARIS (Reuters) - A group of 39 French firms with combined revenue of about 1.2 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) pledged on Thursday to invest at least 45 billion euros from 2016 to 2020 in renewable energy and low carbon technologies. The group that includes oil firm Total, utility EDF, telecoms company Orange and bank Societe Generale also said it would provide bank and bond financing of at least 80 billion euros for climate change projects. (Reporting by Bate Felix; editing by David Clarke)