Microsoft founder Bill Gates offers USD 1.5 billion in climate help, but with one condition

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has offered to give USD 1.5 billion into projects aimed at helping the climate if the US government decides to adopt a program to cut carbon emissions which is currently with the Congress.

The US Senate passed a USD 1.2 trillion infrastructure package few days ago and the policy is aimed at providing billions of dollars to the Department of Energy for projects focused on climate change.

If the infrastructure package becomes law, “this collaboration will not only send us on a more durable path to net zero, but will create both immediate and long-term jobs in communities across the country,” Gates said in a statement published by CNBC.

US President Joe Biden said that the package will fund work on roads, bridges, ports, clean water as well as high-speed internet. The bill is yet to receive House approval.

“This historic investment in infrastructure is what I believe you, the American people, want,” Biden said in a White House address.

The package passed by 69 votes to 30 with backing from a third of Republican Senators and it will face the crucial vote in the House of Representatives in coming days.

According to reports, a Bill Gates fund run by his Breakthrough Energy company is planning to spend USD 1.5 billion in order to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. “Critical for all these climate technologies is to get the costs down and to be able to scale them up to a pretty gigantic level,” Gates was quoted as telling the Wall Street Journal.

“You’ll never get that scale up unless the government’s coming in with the right policies, and the right policy is exactly what’s in that infrastructure bill,” he added.