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Bill Gates launches 1-billion-dollar fund for clean energy technology

(Xinhua)    19:08, December 13, 2016

SEATTLE, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Billionaire philanthropist and technologist Bill Gates and a group of high-profile entrepreneurs announced on Monday the launch of a new fund worth more than 1 billion U.S. dollars to invest in technologies aimed at addressing climate change.

The Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) is an investor-led fund that will "finance emerging energy breakthroughs to deliver affordable and reliable energy with the goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to near-zero," said a statement by the investor group known as the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.

"It is extremely exciting for us to launch this fund as the next step in the commitment made by the Breakthrough Energy Coalition last year," said BEV Chairman Bill Gates.

"I am honored to work along with these investors to build on the powerful foundation of public investment in basic research. Our goal is to build companies that will help deliver the next generation of reliable, affordable, and emissions-free energy to the world," Gates said.

The announcement of the fund comes a year after the United Nations climate change talks in Paris, where Gates unveiled the Breakthrough Energy Coalition -- a group of some 20 billionaire business leaders from around the world, as well as institutional investors, who have committed to investing in new technologies.

Among the investors are Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma, former mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, and SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, among others.

"This effort will combine technological innovation and scientific knowledge with the investment expertise needed to transform energy markets," said Ma of Alibaba in the statement. "Together, we'll remind the world that visionary ideas make wonderful realities."

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, a long-term skeptic of climate change who has pledged to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement during the presidential campaign, is backtracking on his campaign position recently.

In an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, Trump said he has an "open mind" on climate change and is "studying" whether the United States should withdraw from the Paris deal.

"The dialogue with the new administration as it comes in about how they see energy research will be important," Gates told online magazine Quartz. "The general idea that research is a good deal fortunately is not a partisan thing."

Gates was quoted by Reuters as saying that coalition members would continue to push the message to Trump that "even if you don't look at the climate change piece of this, investing makes sense."

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