‘We can overcome climate change’: Richard Branson says young people should not be down about the future

The billionaire Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson said younger generations should feel positive about the future — and that they can “achieve an enormous amount.”

“Any of us who get ourselves into a position where we can make a difference, however small it is, just shouldn’t waste that position,” he said, speaking to CNBC’s Tania Bryer last month.

When asked how he might reassure young people about their future over issues such as climate change, Branson said, “They can achieve an enormous amount, and so I honestly don’t think that young people should be down about it. I think we can overcome climate change if we have the … we’ve got to make sure we have the right politicians at the top,” he said.

“We can make sure that all the problems of the world get fixed, but we just … need to be focused and get everybody focused together to fix them,” Branson said.

Branson made the comments to CNBC before Donald Trump’s reelection — the president-elect is likely to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, a landmark climate pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Branson has previously described Trump as having a “vindictive streak.”

Helping young people has long been a focus for Branson, who — as a teenager in 1967 — opened the Student Advisory Center to provide free advice on sex and relationships. In 2004, he founded Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group, which invests in early-stage businesses to “create opportunities for a better world,” and in 2018, Virgin Unite set up The NewNow, a group of young leaders who aim to represent the needs of their generation.

Branson spoke to CNBC as Virgin Unite launched a partnership with the We Are Family Foundation, an organization co-founded by musician and producer Nile Rodgers in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rodgers lost three friends in the attacks, he said, and he went on to start the foundation to “educate people to just talk about our differences,” when hate crime against Muslim communities rose after 9/11.

“Our sweet spot is, we work with youth around the world,” Rodgers said of the two organizations. Climate change, public health and criminal justice reforms will be a focus, according to an online release.

Young people can make an “immense impact,” Branson said in the release. “The problems we face today mean it has never been more important to make sure that young people are front and centre in that conversation,” he said.

Branson and Rodgers were both activists as young people. Rodgers joined the Black Panther Party in Harlem as a teenager, becoming a community organizer, standing up for racial equality and helping the party with initiatives including its Free Breakfast for School Children Program in the late 1960s. Around the same time, Branson was protesting the Vietnam War via “Student,” the magazine he ran.

Branson said the differences between people can be exaggerated. “The difference between us, let’s say, let’s … call it left and right, is nowhere near as much as politicians want us to believe,” he said, describing a meeting with someone “on the opposite political spectrum” to him. The pair ended up agreeing on most of the world’s biggest issues, Branson said. “The trouble is, the politicians need to … be whipping up fury in order … to get votes, and that’s obviously sad,” he said.

Rodgers, the producer behind hits such as David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,” and Duran Duran’s “The Reflex,” said he has toured extensively this year. “Every country that we’ve gone to has been wonderful, and I find that people are generally terrific. It’s the governments that are unstable and sometimes run by people that don’t have the world’s best interest at heart,” he said.