Govts, business leaders to pledge tens of billions to boost clean energy tech: Officials

Government and business leaders plan to spend tens of billions of dollars in the next five years to develop clean energy technology in efforts to fight global warming, an official and a former official have said.

The initiative, which will be announced tomorrow along with the opening of the United Nations climate summit, involves Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande, a French official and a former US official who weren't authorised to talk on the record told The Associated Press.

France, the US, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada and Norway have already decided to participate in the "ambitious" project that will aim at developing clean energies, the French official said.

The amount of money involved, from countries, companies and individuals would be in the tens of billions of dollars, according to the former US government official, who is familiar with the initiative, and a document obtained by the AP.

The money would be geared toward research and development of technologies, such as energy storage that could make clean power from wind and solar more usable regardless of weather vagaries.

"They are committed to making increased investments in existing technologies and new breakthrough technologies to lower the cost of emissions reductions," the former US government official said.

The former official said what's especially important to Gates is the idea of alleviating energy poverty, which is millions of people who can't get energy. That includes parts of India.

Their pledges will be conditional on governments also pledging more money for that purpose, the former US official said.

According to an early draft of the initiative, which at the time was called "Mission Innovation," governments participating were pledging to double their clean energy research and development spending in the next five years.

The complicated thing for the US is getting such funds approved by a Republican Party controlled Congress.

"The Obama administration recognises that this is a fundamental competitive advantage for the United States. It's time to double down on that competitive advantage" and invest far more in clean energy research and development, the former US official said.