Business giants launch global clean power initiative at United Nations climate summit

India has argued that developed countries need to help poorer countries gain access to renewable energy or zero-emission technologies by helping reduce costs and removing barriers such as intellectual property rights.

Gates has published a paper that he says makes a more detailed case for investing in energy innovation, which you can download here.

The Breakthrough group, meanwhile, will bring together 27 prominent investors, including Gates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla, and billionaire hedge-fund manager turned clean-energy activist Tom Steyer to create a multibillion-dollar fund to bring innovative clean-energy technologies to market.

“Priscilla and I are joining Bill Gates in launching the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to invest in new clean energy technologies”, stated the Facebook founder.

Speaking to reporters, Gates said: “If we are to avoid the levels of warming that are unsafe we need to move at full speed”.

The coalition is a global group of private investors that will take the risks that allow early stage energy companies that emerge from the research programs of Mission Innovation countries to come out of the lab and into the marketplace. Serious cash is all that was needed to get sustainable energy over the line as a viable replacement for fossil fuels, and serious cash we now have.

Backers include Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Virgin’s Richard Branson and Alibaba CEO Jack Ma.

The announcement was made at the opening of the UN climate change conference in Paris where nations will reach a new climate change agreement which will require faster, higher global ambition to transition economies and societies toward a clean energy future.

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.

This summer Gates pledged $2 billion of his personal wealth over the next five years to “bend the curve” on climate change.

In their website, Breakthrough Energy Coalition said that it aims to build a technology that will solve energy issues that are affecting the climate around the world.

Reducing global reliance on fossil fuels also holds the potential for massive economic benefits, Gates added. “This is an important focus for us, and we’ll share more about it in the coming days”, Zuckerberg finished off by saying.