Gates to announce multibillion dollar fund to develop clean energy tech

The White House said it was “essential” to increase clean energy innovation in order to limit global temperature increases to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (two Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, the United Nations target ceiling. In a post on Facebook, Zuckerberg says the current system “doesn’t encourage the kind of innovation” to quickly provide sustainable energy options worldwide.

The billionaires are vowing to build on government research with their own capital to help commercialise low-emission technology.

Priscilla and I are joining Bill Gates in launching the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to invest in new clean energy technologies.

Renewable and clean energy is already being invested in at the Facebook facilities, but Zuckerberg wants to invest in long term projects that the government and other companies do not fund.

Besides boosting worldwide public and private innovation in the sector, the pact seeks to make clean energy affordable to consumers, particularly in the developing world, and create additional business opportunities.

Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs can invent and scale the innovative technologies that will limit the effects of climate change while also providing affordable and reliable energy to everyone, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition stated on its website.

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition aims to invest in ideas that have what Zuckerberg called “the potential to transform the way we all produce and consume energy”.

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 participating countries in the initiative – which include China, India, Brazil, and France, among others – contribute about 75 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions and more than 80 percent of global clean energy research and development investments, according to a Department of Energy statement.