Branson offers €19m climate prize

VIRGIN boss Richard Branson yesterday offered a $25 million (€19.2m) prize to scientists to find a way to help save the planet from climate change.

Flanked by former US vice-president Al Gore and other distinguished environmentalists, Mr Branson called for scientists to come up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Describing the challenge as the largest prize ever offered, Mr Branson compared it to the competition for a person to devise a method of measuring longitude accurately. It was 60 years before Yorkshire clockmaker John Harrison came up with an accurate method and received his prize from King George III.