Britain seeks investment for green projects

LONDON — The United Kingdom announced plans Tuesday to stop installing home heating that uses fossil fuels by 2035 as the government hosted a meeting aimed at attracting billions of dollars in foreign investment for green projects in Britain.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Global Investment Summit in London that private-sector investment and consumer pressure were key to slashing carbon emissions and controlling climate change.

“I can deploy billions,” Johnson told a room full of CEOs and other business leaders. “But you in this room, you can deploy trillions.” “The market is going green,” he added. Among pledges from the one-day meeting at London’s Science Museum was a partnership with Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Catalyst to drive $275 million of private sector investment in green power programs in the U.K., matching the same amount from the government.

The money will finance development in the U.K. of four key green tech areas: green hydrogen, long-term storage for renewable but intermittent energy sources like wind and solar, sustainable aviation fuels and directly capturing carbon dioxide from the air.

The former Microsoft CEO said those technologies are uneconomical now but pouring money into their development would help drive innovation to make them affordable.

“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,” Gates said in a discussion with Johnson on the summit stage.

Gates wasn’t the only billionaire making big sustainable funding pledges Tuesday. The philanthropic organization of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s a U.N. special climate envoy, and the International Solar Alliance said they’re teaming up to work on the goal of mobilizing $1 trillion in investments for solar power in the alliance’s 80 member countries.