Bill Gates, Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani and others join hands to give push to clean energy through innovations
PARIS: Coinciding with India’s move to launch an International Solar Alliance of over 100 sunshine-rich countries, the world’s top industrialists including Bill Gates, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata and Jack Ma will on Monday announce the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, an international group of 28 investors to bring companies that have the potential to deliver affordable, reliable and carbon free power from the research lab to the market.
The coalition will be launched together with Mission Innovation, which is to be hosted by the US President Barack Obama here after the inaugurals of the climate summit.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also attend the Mission Innovation. It is expected that the world’s industry leaders will double their R&D through the initiative that will expedite energy transition by dramatically speeding up the cycle of innovation.
The move of these industry leaders will eventually help the governments from across the globe to move on the clean energy growth path through cutting-edge innovation.
Richard Branson of UK’s Virgin Group, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Meg Whitman of Hewlett Packard are among industry leaders who will be part of that coalition.
Launch of both the International Solar Alliance and the Breakthrough Energy Coalition will be the two most significant events here after the opening of climate summit by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
Both these efforts – one by the governments and the other by big private players – are expected to go a long way in helping the world towards non-fossil fuel energy.
As far as the Alliance of the sunshine-rich countries are concerned, it will have over 100 countries which are solar-rich, lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
These countries, all potential members of the International Solar Alliance are united by a shared vision to bring clean, affordable and renewable solar energy within the reach of all.
Solar energy also is a practical and efficient way to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. With this in mind, these countries are invited by the objective of significantly augmenting solar power generation in their respective countries with a view to contributing to global, sustainable development.
Seeking to present a group of sunshine countries as a block to get a better deal in the rising renewable energy market, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had conceived the idea of an alliance in January.
The move is expected to present these nations as an effective group to get finance and technological support from investors for solar energy market.
Read full article: TOI