Bill Gates has joined forces with Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Mukesh Ambani and a roll call of other billionaires in a push for billions of dollars of new private and public investment in “clean energy”.
The initiative includes $10bn of new spending commitments from 20 governments — among them the US, China, India and Brazil — and was unveiled at the start of talks in Paris on Monday to create the first new global climate accord in 18 years.
The billionaires are vowing to build on government research with their own capital to help commercialise low-emission technology, bridging what they call a “near impassable valley of death” between promising concepts and viable products.