MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK signs agreement with Bill Gates to further develop environment-friendly technologies

Gates and Johnson met Tuesday at London's Science Museum

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and world-leading entrepreneur Bill Gates Tuesday announced a Clean Energy Partnership worth about 400 million pounds sterling (more than US $ 550 million), according to a 10 Downing St. statement.

”The deal involves raising £ 200 million (over US $ 276 million) of private sector investment in the UK to accelerate the development of the latest environmental technologies needed to achieve zero emissions by 2050,” the document read.

Britain has already pledged to allocate at least £ 200 million for the development and implementation of projects in the United Kingdom, in this area, which is part of a £ 1,000-million program already announced by Johnson.

Breakthrough Energy Catalyst is a public-private partnership program that aims to attract investment in green technologies.The agreement was announced Tuesday on the sidelines of the Global Investment Summit in London.

After meeting with Gates at the Science Museum, Johnson said the new partnership will help emerging solutions that are still too expensive for commercial development but which will nonetheless help power a “green industrial revolution,” thus enabling the Government achieve its climate goals.

The prime minister also said the partnership would help develop UK technology related to carbon capture and storage, long-term battery life, jet zero (zero-carbon aviation) and green hydrogen technology. “I think these are all technologies that have massive potential but are currently underinvested in, by comparison with some others.”

“We will only achieve our ambitious climate goals if we rapidly scale up new technologies in areas like green hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels – technologies that seemed impossible just a few years ago,” he added.

“Ahead of Cop26, this new partnership with Catalyst is a boost to the UK’s vision for a green industrial revolution,” he went on.

“It will help to bring innovative technologies to market globally, while building new skills and creating high-quality jobs across the UK,” the Prime Minister elaborated.

Gates said “we will scale those up and bring down that cost, so we’ll get these to the same place we are today with solar and onshore wind, and so they can be scaled up to reduce emissions.”

The businessman also pointed out that “our partnership with the UK will accelerate the deployment of these critical climate solutions, helping to make them more affordable and accessible.”

“In order to achieve net zero emissions, we need to reduce the costs of clean technologies so they can compete with and replace the high-emitting products we use today – I call this difference in price the green premium,” Gates went on, as he praised the UK for making “immense progress” in reducing carbon emissions and for introducing policies that helped support science.