Divestment is okay, but alone it will not halt global warming - Bill Gates

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ossil fuel divestment would be ineffective on its own as a means of halting global warming, software billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates said.

Pulling money out of carbon-heavy industry must be coupled with large spending on alternative technologies to make any difference, said the Microsoft mogul who is under fire for his charitable Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's reported $1.4-billion (1.3-billion-euro) investment in carbon-spewing companies like BP.

The Financial Times reported an announcement Friday by Gates that he will invest $2 billion in green energy, but would not pull his money out of companies that pump out carbon emissions blamed for the planet-warming greenhouse effect.

"I think the solution is investment," Gates said later in Paris on the sidelines of the Solidays anti-AIDS-themed concert, which he backs.

"My concern is that I love the fact that students and people care about climate change, and I don't want to make them think that if they get people to divest that they've solved climate change."

Gates, who speaks of climate change as a major threat to the planet, said he was "not really against divestment", as long as it was coupled with "some serious investments in breakthrough technology."

Read the Times Live story - “Fossil fuel divestment alone will not halt climate change: Gates”.