In an address at the United Nations General Assembly on 11 February, Richard Branson – no virgin in either politics or PR – formally put climate change and war on the same footing.

In order to fight climate change, the Virgin boss said, we needed to recognise that it was a war: “The first war that truly threatens almost all human life”. In a speech clearly intended to echo Sir Winston Churchill’s prescient 1934 warnings about the dangers of ignoring German rearmament before the Second World War, Branson proposed a number of measures.

These included the creation of a Global Warming “War Room”, which would include high-level representatives of government, business and civil society, and would be led by “someone of the stature of Churchill”. Its tasks would include encouraging innovative technological ideas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to climate change.

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