Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, wants to invest $2 billion in projects and start-ups in the next five years to avert climate change, reports said on Monday.

Innovations were needed to avert a climate disaster, Mr. Gates said in a statement published on Monday in the German business daily, Handelsblatt.

He said this was not impossible, but would be very difficult.

Mr. Gates also called for a five-fold increase in government investment in clean energy research and other climate innovations worldwide within the next decade.

The entrepreneur and philanthropist estimated that research worth at least $110 billion would be needed annually.

In his new book, ‘How to avoid a climate disaster,’ Mr. Gates called for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to be eliminated by 2050 in a bid to avoid enormous environmental and economic damage.

Mr. Gates said humans must change the physical economy at a pace never seen before.

In addition, he believed that CO2 taxes, certificate trading, and alternative energies, such as solar and wind power are indispensable.