Branson offers $25 mln global warming prize

LONDON (Reuters) - Airline tycoon Richard Branson announced on
Friday a $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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"Unless we can devise a way of removing CO2 (carbon dioxide)
from the earth's atmosphere we will lose half of all species on earth,
all the coral reefs, 100 million people will be displaced, farmlands
will become deserts and rain forests wastelands."

Branson rejected suggestions that he, as an airline owner, was being hypocritical in announcing the prize.

"I
could ground my airline today, but British Airways would simply take
its place," he said, noting that he was investing heavily in cleaner
engines and fuels.

Top scientists predict that global average
temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this
century due to human activities like burning fossil fuels, putting
millions at risk from rising sea levels, floods, famines and storms.
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