Multiple deep-pocketed donors and 19 countries have joined billionnaire philanthropist Bill Gates to double their contributions to climate and clean energy research to $20 billion between now and 2020, The Guardian reported Monday.
Canada joined the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa in making the commitment to double state funding for clean energy R&D, with the National Observer reporting that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had kept an election promise with his pledge of C$300 million per year. Along with Gates, fellow Americans Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, and Meg Whitman have committed to invest more aggressively to bring green technologies to market faster. They were joined by international tycoons Hasso Plattner of Germany, Ratan Tata of India, and China’s Jack Ma.
Ma has been reckoned by Forbes as China’s richest man, worth $24 billion. Plattner, founder of Germany’s SAP software company, was estimated in 2013 to be worth $9 billion. Tata, who heads a Mumbai conglomerate that makes everything from tea to steel, has a published net worth of $1 billion. Gates’ fortune is estimated at $80 billion. The three other Americans control a little over $60 billion among them.
The combined weight of such private and government commitments sends “a strong signal that the world is committed to helping to mobilise the resources necessary to ensure countries can deploy clean energy solutions in cost-effective ways in their economies,” White House senior advisor Brian Deese.
