Obama also praised Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg for leading a private effort to seek and fund promising new clean energy technologies around the world.
Advertisement
Some of the biggest players in the tech world have united to create a “new economic revolution” with renewable energy, launching a multibillion dollar venture capital fund to invest in clean energy technologies. “Go here to view a YouTube video of Gates talking about the project”. The 19 make up about 80 percent of clean energy research and development spending in the world and 75 percent of global emissions of C02.
“You need the innovation so that the cost of clean is as low or ideally lower than what coal-based energy generates”.
Backers include U.S. President Barack Obama, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires George Soros and Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal, Jack Ma of China’s Alibaba and Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani. “The existing system of basic research, clean energy investment, regulatory frameworks, and subsidies fails to sufficiently mobilize investment in truly transformative energy solutions for the future”.
Each nation has vowed to double its budget over the next five years.
Gates was at the Paris 2015 Climate Conference to launch the initiative, along with a multi-government climate change alliance. Gates is the unofficial “quarterback” of this initiative. In a statement, the group said that it aims to close the gap between commitment towards a new energy concept and transforming it into a profitable and usable technology, which “neither government funding nor conventional private investment can bridge”.
The fund, which doesn’t have a set figure attached to it yet, will centre on electricity generation and storage, transportation, industrial use, agriculture and energy system efficiency.
They will announce the advance energy coalition on Monday, a group of 28 worldwide investors for bringing companies that have reliable, the possible for delivering reasonable and carbon-free power from the research lab to the market.
Advertisement
“It would help millions more people escape poverty and become more self-sufficient”, Gates wrote.
