Branson said on May Oil reached U.S. $ 200 per barrel cleaning Without new policies Energy

Oil prices could rise to $ 200 a barrel if the world moves more quickly to a clean energy economy, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., said in an interview.

"It is certainly conceivable unless we can start saving energy quickly and get alternative fuels," Branson said yesterday in Cancun, Mexico, where countries come together to negotiate a new agreement to combat climate change.

Branson predicts "incredibly painful" recession unless governments do more to promote renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuels like oil. In the U.S., where efforts to limit emissions of carbon dioxide failed in the Senate earlier this year, unemployment could reach record levels, the British billionaire said.

"We will have the mother of all recessions, if not quickly solve our energy policy," Branson said last night in the World Climate Summit in Cancun. "We think what we mean today. In five years the period of unemployment can go to 15 percent without any difficulty at all in America."

Branson, 60, spoke with U.S. billionaire Ted Turner, founder of Cable News Network. Branson and Turner, 72, will also speak tomorrow at the two-day conference focused on how businesses can help combat climate change.

* Make Kyoto

Meanwhile, negotiators from nearly 190 countries are faced with how to proceed in the negotiations of United Nations treaty aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Industrialized and developing nations are divided over the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Japan, Russia and Canada have refused to sign up for a second round of emissions reductions once the current written in Kyoto expires in 2012.

Emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil are "absolutely unanimous" in its position that developed countries should agree on a new period of engagement, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, said yesterday. Kyoto discord threatens to divert attention from talks on a new global climate agreement that includes the U.S., he said. U.S. is not the only developed country of Kyoto.

Turner urged countries to reach an agreement.

"Let's do it," he said. "Let's do it now before it's too late."