Branson pledges $3bn to Clinton environment initiative

The second US annual Clinton Global Initiative has been crowned by a $3bn (€2.34bn) pledge from business mogul Richard Branson for battling global warming.

Some 150 other commitments amounting to nearly $3bn had been promised by last night to tackle a range of causes worldwide.

The New York conference hosted by former President Bill Clinton is an annual gathering of business, political and non-profit leaders that requires participants to make financial or other commitments to help solve global problems.

Attendees include UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, singer Barbra Streisand, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. US Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of the former president and a potential 2008 presidential candidate, was scheduled to attend today.

The 2005 conference resulted in $2.5bn (€1.95) in commitments, less than half of the nearly $6bn (€4.68bn) pledged so far this year.

But the pledge that stole the show yesterday came from Branson, the entrepreneur behind the multi-platform Virgin brand. He said the $3bn was the estimated amount of total profits from Virgin Group’s airline and train sectors over the next decade, all of which will be reinvested in efforts to develop alternative, sustainable energy sources, in particular biofuels.

Branson said he was inspired to make the 10-year commitment after a meeting with Clinton’s former vice president, Al Gore, a leading environmental activist who urged him to do more for the health of the planet.

“Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents,” Branson said. “We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment. We must hand it over to our children in as near pristine a condition as we were lent it from our parents.”

Branson, 56, first started his brand in music, with Virgin as the name of a music retailing company.

He expanded into a number of other fields, including airlines in 1984. Branson, who was knighted in 1999, is also known for his adventure activities, which have included sailing and hot-air ballooning.

Clinton praised Branson, calling him one of the “most interesting”, “creative” and “genuinely committed” people he had ever known. Gore, too, was on hand later in the day to applaud the so-called “rebel billionaire”, joking that the tycoon’s well-publicised rocket ship ventures should also fall under the commitment.

Gore warned during a session on the environment and sustainable energy that the world faces a “full-scale planetary emergency” when it comes to global warming.

He said if the US took the lead, it will spur other countries, including China, to get on board. And he scolded those businesses that he said were deliberately downplaying the threat posed by global warming.

“We’ve allowed ourselves to adopt a philosophy of short-term thinking that somehow we think absolves us of future consequences of present actions,” Gore said.