The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist is set to announce his latest endeavor, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition³, at the climate change summit in Paris alongside President Obama and French President Francois Hollande.

 

The fund will be fed by a group that spans more than two dozen public and private entities⁴ -- including national governments, billionaire philanthropists, investment fund managers and tech CEOs.

 

"The renewable technologies we have today, like wind and solar, have made a lot of progress and could be one path to a zero-carbon energy future. But given the scale of the challenge, we need to be exploring many different paths -- and that means we also need to invent new approaches," Gates said in a statement.

 

Among the list of backers are Alibaba CEO Jack⁵ Ma, Mark Zuckerberg ofFacebook, Meg Whitman of HP and Virgin⁶ Group's Richard Branson.

 

More than a dozen governments have also committed to double their spending on carbon-free energy development over the next five years.

 

"Private companies will ultimately develop these energy breakthroughs, but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund," Gates added.

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