During a clean energy investment summit this week, Vice President Joe Biden announced $4 billion in private sector and foundation commitments that doubled the White House’s original $2-billion target.
“America’s world-class researchers and entrepreneurs are developing the next breakthrough technologies that will transform how we generate, store, and consume energy,” the White House said in a release. “We need to continue to invest in innovation to reduce carbon pollution while growing the economy—and creating entirely new industries here in America.”
The release cites the University of California (UC), Goldman Sachs, and the Sierra Club Foundation as examples of the “major foundations, institutional investors, and other long-term investors” that committed to “fund climate change solutions, including innovative technologies with breakthrough potential to reduce carbon pollution.”
The announcement included $1.2 billion from a consortium of institutional investors that hopes to mobilize $2.5 billion in new investment in climate solutions over five years. “The new intermediary will focus on opportunities that would not fit into existing fund structures, moving companies and projects across the innovation and commercialization ‘valleys of death,’” the release states. The initial investors in the group include the UC Chief Investment Officer, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, the Alaska Permanent Fund, TIAA-CREF, and Tamarisc.
