World billionaires launch energy coalition
The heads of 147 states attend the UN climate change conference in Paris - also there will be Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and 27 other billionaires, who have pledged to fund research to develop a technical fix to the planet's climate woes.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition - which also includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Virgin's Richard Branson and Alibaba founder Jack Ma - was announced yesterday with a promise to "invest early,invest broadly, invest boldly, invest wisely and invest together".
In a statement on their website, the coalition said the "poorest parts of the world require an aggressive global program for zero-emission energy innovation".The group said that government research "was not enough" and they needed to "add the skills and resources of leading investors with experience in driving innovation from the lab to the marketplace".
The coalition founders timed the news to coincide with the start of the Paris climate change talks.
Leaders from 150 countries around the world are meeting to draw up new plans to reduce carbon emissions.
175 countries have tabled proposals to stop global temperatures rising by an average of 2.7C but the United Nations would prefer the temperature rise to be capped at 1.5C.
Other prominent members of the coalition include Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, investor George Soros, HP CEO Meg Whitman, Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and Japanese telecom investor Masayoshi Son. In addition to Virgin Group's Branson, coalition members from Europe include Hasso Plattner of Germany, who cofounded software firm SAP; Xavier Niel of France, founder of the telecom-focused Iliad Group; and Chris Hohn of the UK, founder of The Children's Investment Fund, a hedge fund.
The operating principle of the coalition is that "the world needs widely available energy that is reliable, affordable, and does not produce carbon," according to the coalition's website. "The only way to accomplish that goal is by developing new tools to power the world." The coalition is working with the countries that have agreed to the Mission Innovation initiative.
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