Microsoft's Gates to start multi-billion-dollar clean tech initiative
NEW YORK/PARIS
(Reuters) - Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will launch a
multi-billion-dollar clean energy research and development initiative
with heads of state on Monday, the opening day of the U.N. climate
change summit in Paris, the French government said Friday.
Gates and a group of developing and developed countries
will launch the Clean Tech Initiative, in which countries will commit to
doubling their clean energy technology research and development budgets
by 2020 and private investors will boost their own investments in the
sector.
Access to clean energy technology will play a
key role in a global agreement to combat climate change. More than 190
countries will negotiate a new pact in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 at
the 21st U.N. Conference of the Parties summit.
France, the United States, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia,
Australia, Canada and Norway have said they will join, a source close to
the conference presidency told Reuters.
“Gates' announcement should prompt other countries to follow suit," the source said.
Gates will join Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, U.S.
President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande to
announce the initiative on the opening day of the two-week summit,
according to an agenda released Friday.
For India,
the world's third largest greenhouse gas emitter, access to clean energy
technology is at the core of its national strategy to combat climate
change.
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.
On the
sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September, Gates attended a
bilateral meeting focused on climate change between Hollande and Modi.
The French presidency source said India will be one of the founding beneficiaries of the new initiative.
“This is one of the main points of the negotiation: how to improve clean technologies and give the poorest countries access to these technologies," the source said.
This summer
Gates pledged $2 billion of his personal wealth over the next five years
to "bend the curve" on climate change.
In a blog
post in July, he said more breakthrough technologies are needed to
combat climate change and that current technologies reduce emissions at a
cost that his “beyond astronomical."
He said
accelerating government funding for clean energy research and
development is crucial to attracting private investment.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Emmanuel Jarry; Editing by Bill Trott)
Courtesy: Yahoo!
