Branson launches climate prize
February 9, 2007
Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson launched the competition today in London alongside former US vice-president Al Gore.
A panel of judges will oversee the prize, including James Lovelock and Nasa scientist James Hansen.
Sir Richard said humankind must realise the scale of the crisis it faced.
"The Earth cannot wait 60 years," he said at the press conference.
"I want a future for my children and my children's children. The clock is ticking.
He said if the planet was to survive, it was vital to find a way of getting rid of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
He said he believed offering the $25m Earth Challenge prize was the best way of finding a solution.
Moral challenge
Overseeing the innovations are James Hansen, head of the Nasa Institute for Space Studies, the inventor of Gaia theory James Lovelock, UK environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell and Australian conservationist Tim Flannery.
They are looking for a method that will remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere.
Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned environmental campaigner, joined the Virgin boss.
He said: "It's a challenge to the moral imagination of humankind to actually accept the reality of the situation we are now facing.
"We're not used to thinking of a planetary emergency, and there's nothing in our prior history as a species that equips us to imagine that we as human beings could actually be in the process of destroying the habitability of the planet for ourselves."
His recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, focused on global warming.
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