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.
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 $5 million of the prize being paid at the start and the remaining $20 million at the end.