Tycoon pledges billions for environment

LONDON — British billionaire Richard Branson pledged Thursday to invest all profit from his Virgin Group airline and train businesses over the next decade — an estimated $3 billion — to fight global warming and promote alternative energy.

"Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents," Branson said in New York, standing near former President Clinton. "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."

At the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual conference, Branson said he hoped to promote renewable-energy initiatives through a unit of his company called Virgin Fuels. "We must rapidly wean ourselves off our dependence on coal and fossil fuels," he said. Transportation-industry leaders "must be at the forefront of developing environmentally friendly business strategies."

Branson's pledge is the latest bold stroke from an entrepreneur whose colorful career has included promoting punk icons the Sex Pistols, crossing oceans in balloons and pioneering amenities such as manicures on commercial airliners.

"With extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility," Branson, 56, told the BBC this year. "And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference."

Branson's move further isolates the U.S. government on the issue. President Bush has consistently played down the dangers of global climate change, declining to back the Kyoto Protocol.