Posted on February 12, 2007

Richard Branson Creates Global Warming Prize

Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson has announced the creation of a $25 million prize for the first person to come up with a way of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, Reuters reports.

The Virgin Earth Challenge prize will be open to entries for five years, with ideas assessed by a panel of judges that includes Branson, former vice president Al Gore, U.S. climate scientist James Hansen, British environmental writer and former diplomat Crispin Tickell, British scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock, and Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery. The winning solution will be expected to remove one billion metric tons of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for ten years — with $5 million paid at the start of that period and the remaining $20 million to follow at the end of the ten years. If no winner is identified after five years, the judges can extend the trial period.

According to Flannery, two hundred metric gigatons of carbon have accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, raising concentrations of the gas by one hundred parts per million. As a result, many scientists predict that the global average temperature will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius during this century due to human activity, putting millions at risk from rising sea levels, floods, famines, and storms.

"Man created the problem and therefore man should solve the problem," said Branson. "Unless we can devise a way of removing [carbon dioxide] from the earth's atmosphere we will lose half of all species on earth, all the coral reefs, one hundred million people will be displaced, farmlands will become deserts, and rain forests wastelands."