ITIF Welcomes ‘Mission Innovation’ Initiative as Important Step Forward, but Urges Further Clean Energy Investment Worldwide to Curb Climate Change

WASHINGTON—The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) today welcomed a joint initiative by 20 of the world’s largest economies to scale up investments in clean energy research and development in an effort to curb global climate change. Commenting on this “Mission Innovation” initiative, ITIF released the following statement from its president and founder, Robert D. Atkinson:

We are very pleased that policymakers around the world are committing to increase clean energy innovation, because the only plausible way to curb greenhouse emissions is to make clean energy technologies more affordable than fossil fuels. The world needs to dramatically scale up its collective investment in research and development to get these technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace.

By doubling their public sector investments in clean energy innovation, the 20 countries so far involved in the “Mission Innovation” initiative are taking an important step in the right direction. But it is only a first step. As ITIF and other leading organizations have argued, the world really needs to be investing upwards of $100 billion per year in clean energy R&D, or about 0.15 percent of global GDP. We hope all countries will join in the Mission Innovation initiative and continue increasing their investments until we reach that goal.