Branson pledges £12.5million for 'answer' to climate change
February 13th 2008

Speaking at a General Assembly debate on climate change at the UN headquarters in New York, Sir Richard Branson offered the money as an incentive to scientists, engineers and entrepeneurs to explore ways of controlling climate change.

At the two day event being held to generate support for a new treaty to fight global warming by 2009, a great deal of emphasis was placed on cutting carbon emissions, but the Virgin CEO suggested if we are to stand a real chance of averting catastrophe more emphasis needs to be placed on finding scientific or technological solutions.

"If such a breakthrough could take place, mankind could regulate earth's temperature by extracting carbon when it's getting too hot and by adding carbon when its getting too cold," suggested Branson.

"We have certainly sorted out how to add carbon, we just need to sort out how to extract it," he added.

Branson appealed to the world's twelve richest nations to join him in pledging money to support this cause, stressing the importance of working together to fight this challenge: "History has taught us that in times of peril, when all seems lost, bringing together the greatest minds of a nation to work together, with one common goal - survival - is the most effective way to prevail."

Expressing his conviction that the answer is out threre, Branson proposed that a politically-independent environmental war room should be set up to combine: "entrepreneurial muscle, the best possible data and the power to mobilise resources and influence policy."

"The great minds are out there," he added, but at the moment, "they are fighting in isolation."

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