Soros pledges $1.3b to find climate change solutions

Sunday, October 11, 2009 Billionaire George Soros, looking to address the "political problem" of climate change, says he will invest US$1 billion ($1.3 billion) in clean-energy technology and create an organisation to advise policy makers on environmental issues.

Soros, the founder of hedge fund Soros Fund Management, announced the investment in Copenhagen yesterday at a meeting on climate change sponsored by Project Syndicate. The group is made up of 430 newspapers from 150 countries.

"I want to apply rather stringent criteria to the investments," said Soros in an emailed message. "They should be profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem."

Soros, whose own wealth accounts for much of the approximately US$24 billion his New York-based money-management firm oversees, didn't provide details on the type or scope of possible investments.

Soros, 79, also will establish the Climate Policy Initiative, a San Francisco-based organisation to which he will donate US$10 million a year for 10 years.
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