Branson offers US$25M global warming prize

Remove 1 billion tonnes and win

Airline tycoon Richard Branson announced on Friday a US$25-million prize for the first person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere in the battle to beat global warming.

Flanked by climate campaigners former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and British ex-diplomat Crispin Tickell, Branson said he hoped the prize would spur innovative and creative thought to save mankind from self-destruction.

"Man created the problem and therefore man should solve the problem," he told a news conference to reveal the Virgin Earth Challenge.
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The prize will initially only be open for five years, with ideas assessed by a panel of judges including Branson, Gore and Tickell as well as U.S. climate scientist James Hansen, Briton James Lovelock and Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery.

The winner will have to come up with a way of removing one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for 10 years -- with US$5 million of the prize being paid at the start and the remaining US$20 million at the end.