From Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, more than 20 billionaires have set up a foundation with the aim of giving greater impetus to the energy revolution.
They are the most influential people in the economic, financial and technological world. More than 20 billionaires — from the founder of Facebook to the CEO of Amazon to the chairman of one of China's largest e-commerce chains — have decided to give a strong boost to the development of new solutions for producing energy from clean and renewable sources.
To this end, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition was established, with the specific aim of supporting governments in research and development investment. "We know that public investment in research can spur the creation of industries that promote the common good and are driven by private capital," reads the Coalition's official page. "The political will is aiming to do so again, through an aggressive increase in government investment for basic and applied energy research. However, current levels of funding for clean energy are simply insufficient to meet the challenges before us."
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Jack Ma and many others have thus decided to pool their efforts and investments in new companies whose DNA will be built around developing an energy future close to zero emissions, accessible and reliable. This is demonstrated by Bill Gates's latest move: over the next five years, he will invest $1 billion in companies developing clean energy sources.
The trend of increasing investment in renewables is also confirmed by World Bank data released just a few days after Cop21, particularly in developing countries: "In the first six months of 2015, 74 renewable energy projects were financed in developing countries, with private investment of $12.4 billion," reports an Ansa dispatch.
"Solving the energy problem is a fundamental issue if we want to build a better world," writes Zuckerberg on his Facebook page. "We won't be able to make meaningful progress on the other challenges […] without energy security and a stable climate." For this reason: "the Breakthrough Energy Coalition will invest in those ideas that have the potential to transform the way we produce and consume energy."