Obama and Bill Gates to Launch Clean Energy Initiative
30 November 2015 - 1:40AM
Dow Jones News
PARIS—President Barack Obama and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates
will launch a multi-billion-dollar initiative Monday to accelerate
clean-energy research and development as part of a global effort to
fight climate change.
The announcement is timed to provide a jolt of momentum as world
leaders gather in Paris for the start of a two-week summit focused
on forging an international agreement to cut greenhouse-gas
emissions. The president and Mr. Gates will join with other heads
of state and investors to detail complementary public and private
commitments to clean-energy innovation.
The goal, Obama administration officials said, is to speed the
pace of progress on new technologies that will help curb emissions
and limit the rise of global temperatures.
Brian Deese, a senior White House adviser who specializes in
climate issues, said the initiative "should help to send a strong
signal that the world is committed to helping to try to mobilize
the resources necessary to ensure that countries around the world
can deploy clean energy solutions in cost-effective ways."
The 20 countries that have signed on to Mission Innovation will
pledge to double their investments in clean-energy research and
development during the next five years. The U.S. now spends more
than $5 billion annually, administration officials said.
The participating countries, which represent about 75% of global
carbon-dioxide emissions from the electricity sector, include
China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and France. The
diversity of the countries' energy interests should help ensure a
range of new technologies is developed, administration officials
said.
In the U.S., winning approval from the Republican-controlled
Congress for additional clean-energy funds could prove to be a
challenge. GOP lawmakers have been fierce opponents of Mr. Obama's
climate agenda, which they say will kill jobs and drive up
electricity prices.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz expressed confidence the
initiative would attract bipartisan support, saying innovation
efforts have had broad backing in the past.
As the countries kick off the effort, Mr. Gates simultaneously
will launch the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a private-sector
push aimed at bringing early-stage energy programs into the
marketplace, administration officials said.
Earlier this year, Mr. Gates committed to invest $1 billion in
clean-energy technology during the next five years, saying that
mitigating climate change would also help to fight poverty.
"I think this issue is especially important because, of all the
people who will be affected by climate change, those in poor
countries will suffer the most," Mr. Gates wrote this summer. "It
would be a terrible injustice to let climate change undo any of the
past half-century's progress against poverty and disease—and doubly
unfair because the people who will be hurt the most are the ones
doing the least to cause the problem."
Write to Colleen McCain Nelson at colleen.nelson@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 29, 2015 20:25 ET (01:25 GMT)
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