Carbon War Room, the non-profit backed by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, is looking to expand in Asia and use Singapore as its base.
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The founder and chairman of the Virgin Group told reporters this week that the outfit, which seeks to accelerate investment into carbon-cutting technologies, was “looking for business leaders in the Far East” to fight this war on carbon.
“We want to find groups of people who can help us in this region…we’d like to see Carbon War Room based in Singapore but helped by countries all around here. There’s so much new business taking place here, and so many imaginative ways that we can do it in a carbon-friendly way instead of carbon-dirty way,” said Mr Branson.
Scientists have blamed the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere for worsening climate change.
Speaking on the sidelines of Carbon War Room’s Creating Climate Wealth summit - the first to be held in Asia on Monday - Mr Branson said the building industry is one area that Carbon War Room is looking into as dramatic savings can be achieved.
He conceded that his businesses “put out a lot of carbon” and this is why he started Carbon War Room in 2009.
“War is not a nice thing, but a carbon war is the right thing because it’s a call to arms… it is a war worth fighting,” he added.
Mr Branson also went to lengths to explain his latest venture - Virgin Galactic - which is introducing rocket-powered space tourism flights by the end of the year.
When he asked the 250-strong audience at the summit who wanted to go to space, almost everyone held up their hand.
“It’s an unusual business… but that’s the answer. Ninety per cent of the world wants to become astronauts. There’s nothing more captivating and enchanting and magnificent than to go up and look at our beautiful earth and have the experience of a lifetime,” he said.
“I’ve talked to the Russians.. and they said that with 50 million dollars, they’ll be happy to have me. With that money, I’d rather build my own,” he said to laughter in the audience.
When asked by Eco-Business later if this could be considered a ‘sustainable’ business, he said it would have a minor impact on climate change.
“We have reduced the carbon cost of someone going into space from something like two weeks of New York’s electricity supply… to less than the cost of a economy round-trip from Singapore to London,” he explained to reporters at Marina Bay Sands.
“New technology can dramatically reduce the carbon output and that is the challenge we have set ourselves,” he said.
More than 500 people have reserved seats on his space flight, and paid deposits on the $200,000 ticket price on the SpaceShipTwo (SS2). Its lightweight carbon-fibre body will also “reduce fuel burn dramatically”, he said.
The SS2 is designed to be launched by a transport plane called White KnightTwo and will be guided by a rocket motor before returning to Earth.
Speaking on the global climate crisis, Mr Branson said that the “problem with climate change is you can’t see it”. “Even though 98 per cent of scientists say we have a problem, the two per cent funded by the oil and coal industry have powerful voices and muddy the waters,” he said.
“We have to make it advantageous for people to use solar and wind and develop really clean batteries that the little shift could make an enormous difference,” he added.
Governments can play a role here by changing the playing field. Then, it’s about business leaders “using our imagination, see how we can get our own house in order and save ourselves some money”.
