Zuckerberg, Others Fund Clean Energy

Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates have joined forces to invest in technologies to solve the clean energy problem. Rubbing shoulders with the world leaders at COP21 in Paris, some high-tech gurus are adding their weight to the battle to contain climate change.

Participating countries include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, the UK and Northern Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and the US.

The second initiative, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, is spearheaded by Bill Gates and a group of global investors to help transform clean energy research into commercial technologies.

As these two clean energy initiatives demonstrate and those to be announced through the Action Agenda in the coming days only reinforce, the transition to a clean energy future is accelerating and coming up fast.

“Zuckerberg, who, on December 2, promised his newborn daughter Maxima that he will donate 99% (amounting to $45 billion) of his Facebook shares, said, “… we believe that building a positive future for the next generation also means investing in long term projects that companies and governments don’t fund”. The tech leaders want their new fund to complement government-backed initiatives that seek to develop green technology to increase the output of energy on the planet while at the same time reducing the impact of the burning of fossil fuels.

“Our primary goal with the Coalition is as much to accelerate progress on clean energy as it is to make a profit”, Gates says. There are other members in the coalition that include Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and Virgin’s Richard Branson.

Gates will be joining US President Barack Obama in launching the separate group on Monday in Paris.

The private sector coalition would disperse its funding in the nineteen nations agreeing to Mission Innovation, the name given to the public funding agreement.

“For energy as a whole, the incentive to invest is quite limited, because unlike digital products-where you get very rapid adoption and so, within the period that your trade secret stays secret or your patent gives you a 20-year exclusive, you can reap incredible returns-almost everything that’s been invented in energy was invented more than 20 years before it got scaled usage”, Gates told the magazine.