PARIS, Nov. 30 (UPI) — Billionaire Bill Gates is expected to release Monday a new multi-country, multi-billionaire partnership plan for clean-energy research.
The White House released some of the details of the plan ahead of the United Nations climate change summit in Paris this week. Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will make the formal announcement of the plan on Monday, the first day of summit meetings.
Billed as the largest ever clean-energy funding source, Gates’ coalition will involve 19 governments and 28 billionaires from 10 countries, and a multi-billion-dollar private-public partnership to fund clean- and renewable-energy research.
How to pay for new eco-friendly energy sources is always a point of contention. The United States currently invests $5 billion a year. Also, no global climate agreement has been reached since 2009. With such a major financial pledge and support from nations like the U.S., China and India, Gates’ plan is designed to add momentum to the summit.
“This should help to send a strong signal that the world is committed to try to mobilize the resources necessary so countries can deploy clean-energy solutions in cost-effective ways in their economies,” said Brian Deese, senior climate change policy adviser to President Obama.
The plan will help fund a cooperative project between the U.S. and India, to help India develop solar and wind power while weening itself off coal.
Gates has said that advancing new energy advances civilization, especially in the developing world.
“I think this issue is especially important because, of all the people who will be affected by climate change, those in poor countries will suffer the most,” he wrote in his blog. “Higher temperatures and less-predictable weather would hurt poor farmers, most of whom live on the edge and can be devastated by a single bad crop.”
Gates’ plan includes the nations of Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, among others. Each of the countries involved has pledged to double their spending on clean-energy research over the five years.
Some of the billionaires in the coalition are Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
The climate summit will bring together representatives from almost 200 countries for 12 days in the effort to create the first global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
