If governments won’t act quickly enough on climate change, who will?
Enter the new breed of (mostly young) billionaire philanthropists. Their goal is to use their influence and money to push the boundaries of science and technology for society’s benefit.
One example is Mike Cannon-Brookes, billionaire co-founder of software developer Atlassian and his partner Annie Cannon-Brooke who this month pledged A$1.5 billion to invest in climate projects by 2030.
$1 billion will be in financial investments and $500 million in philanthropic and advocacy work, with the aim of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees. He wants other executives to follow suit.
In the US the world’s largest funds manager Blackrock has injected funds into billionaire Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, which is using philanthropic money to accelerate investments in new technologies.
Breakthrough has reportedly secured US$1 billion in investments from Microsoft, General Motors, American Airlines, Boston Consulting Group, Bank of America and ArcelorMittal.
In India, in Denmark, in Australia
In India, its richest citizen Mukesh Ambani has pledged to take his energy giant net-zero by 2035, an undertaking he will fulfil by switching to renewable sources and converting carbon dioxide emissions into useful products and chemicals.
Australia’s Andrew Forrest has established Fortescue Future Industries as part of Fortescue Metals with a mandate to invest billions in Green Hydrogen projects in Queensland and NSW and to take the mining group carbon-neutral by 2040.
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Elsewhere a Danish sceptic on carbon pricing Bjørn Lomborg has made a case for innovation in energy research in energy research as the way to limit carbon emissions, citing a parallel from the 1860’s when whales were hunted to near extinction for oil that was used to light homes.
He says the solution was not to…