Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, philanthropist and the richest man on Earth, announced the creation of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, designed to invest in the development of renewable and clean energy. Many other well-known businessmen and influential people have already joined the initiative: Alibaba CEO and founder Jack Ma, HP (Hewlett Packard) CEO Meg Whitman, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with his wife Priscilla Chan, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson , the richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangot, the creator of a network of charitable organizations Georges Soros, as well as the investment department of the University of California at Berkeley (USA).
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition is represented by 20 countries (including the UK, India, China, Saudi Arabia, the USA and Chile), whose inhabitants carry out up to 80% of all global clean energy research and development. The members of the new alliance intend to invest heavily - at this stage, their investments amount to 2 billion US dollars - in a qualitative change in the world's energy production systems in order to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The consortium will take on the risks that will enable young energy companies of a new kind to put R&D ideas into practice and enter the real market.
The leaders of many of the IT companies that are part of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition have been developing alternative energy sources before. For example, Mark Zuckerberg wrote that "we are already investing in renewable and clean energy for Facebook's infrastructure today, but we believe that creating a better future for the next generations also means investing in long-term projects that companies and governments do not finance." Another internet giant, Google, just recently added 842 megawatts of renewable energy generation capacity to its growing array of data centers around the world; and this was made possible not only by energy purchases in the United States, but also by wind turbines in Chile, as well as solar farms in China.
The announcement of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition took place on the opening day of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, which will last until December 11th.
See also anekdotig:
- Newsletter: " Marches around the world in support of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) " (November 30, 2015)
- Newsletter: " Buddhist World Leaders Release Message to Paris United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) " (October 30, 2015)
- Newsletter: " Europe's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Call for Further Cuts " (October 26, 2015)
- Newsletter: " US Takes Historic Step in Combating Climate Change with Clean Energy Plan " (August 4, 2015)