Apollo-scale clean energy research plan proposed by leading figures: Global Apollo Programme

We went to the moon. Not because it was easy but because it was hard. In an open letter to the Guardian, leading figures have called today for an ambitious initiative to make clean energy cheaper than coal launching the Global Apollo Programme.

You can read the letter here, but it opens with: “We, the undersigned, believe that global warming can be addressed without adding significant economic costs or burdening taxpayers with more debt. A sensible approach to tackling climate change will not only pay for itself but provide economic benefits to the nations of the world.”

It concludes: “Just as with the Apollo space missions of the 1960s, great scientific minds must now be assembled to find a solution to one of the biggest challenges we face.”

In JFK’s famous speech he stated: “We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

The signatories below choose to save our fragile planet. Join them.

David Attenborough
Professor Brian Cox
Paul Polman CEO, Unilever
Arunabha Ghosh CEO, Council on Energy Environment and Water
Ed Davey Former UK energy secretary
Nicholas Stern IG Patel professor of economics and government, LSE
Bill Hare Founder and CEO, Climate Analytics
Nilesh Y Jadhav Programme director, Energy Research Institute @NTU, Singapore
Niall Dunne Chief sustainability officer, BT
Carlo Carraro Director, International Centre for Climate Governance
Professor Brian Hoskins Chair, Grantham Institute
Mark Kenber CEO, The Climate Group
Ben Goldsmith Founder, Menhaden Capital
Sabina Ratti Executive director, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
John Browne Chairman, L1 Energy
Zac Goldsmith MP
Professor Martin Siegert Co-director, Grantham Institute
Professor Joanna Haigh Co-director, Grantham Institute, and vice-president of Royal Meteorological Society
Peter Bakker President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Dr Fatima Denton African Climate Policy Centre
Denys Shortt CEO, DCS Group
Adair Turner Former chairman, Financial Services Authority
Gus O’Donnell Former cabinet secretary
Richard Layard London School of Economics
Professor John Shepherd
Martin Rees Astronomer royal