“But given the scale of the challenge, we need to be exploring many different paths – and that means we also need to invent new approaches”, Gates wrote.
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On the governmental side, President Obama announced yesterday Mission Innovation, a plan to dramatically accelerate clean energy innovation to address climate change.
Gates will launch the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a group of 28 private investors who hail from Silicon Valley to South Africa, that will invest billions of dollars in “patient, flexible risk capital” to bring riskier new technologies to market.
Months ahead of COP21, Gates announced a personal $2 billion investment in renewable energy to “bend the curve” on climate change.
Among the members of the coalition are Virgin Air founder Sir Richard Branson, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos and Softbank CEO and founder Masayoshi Son.
The government will also invest an additional $200 million each year to support innovation and the use of clean technologies in the natural resources sector.
Along with the initiative, Gates will also launch the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to help the private-sector push early-stage energy programs into the marketplace. In a statement, the White House said 20 countries are committing to doubling their investment over five years, including the five most populous nations: China, India, the United States, Indonesia and Brazil. This announcement was first reported by ClimateWire.
Tech companies always claim they’re going to “change the world”, but a group of the biggest names in the industry might actually do it. Some of the world’s wealthiest people are joining forces with a new organization created to develop clean technologies and address climate change. “The government’s been there to fund basic research, that was true for the digital revolution, where government contracts led to the internet”.
Breakthrough Energy Coalition is a compliment to Mission Innovation, an worldwide commitment to fueling research and development in the clean-energy arena. By signing this pledge, these countries have committed to double their spending on sustainable energy technologies over the next five years.
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For example, Gates says more research is needed in new kinds of batteries – “flow batteries” – that he says hold more promise than current battery technology.
