Australia to Invest $50 Million More in Joint Fund

By SUNIL RAGHU
NEW DELHI -- Australia will invest an additional $50 million in an Australia-India strategic research fund, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Thursday, underscoring the country's initiative to collaborate to combat climate change issues.
The fund will be spent over a five-year period from the fiscal year that began April 1, Mr. Rudd said while speaking at Tata Energy Research Institute.
The investment toward the joint research initiative seeks to support more applied research and greater participation of industry partners to help address some of the climate change challenges, according to an Australian government statement.
"Climate change is a fundamental change to us all," Mr. Rudd said. "There is a need for a collaboration, unprecedented in human history."
Australia has already invested $20 million in the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund -- its largest bilateral research fund -- since 2006 to enable Australian scientists engage in collaborative research with Indian counterparts.
Australia will also invest $1 million in a joint solar cooling research project and an additional $20 million in dryland farming research, according to the statement.
The solar cooling project aims to develop a zero emissions cooling system targeted at remote rural communities in non-electrified areas and the fund allotted toward dryland farming will be staggered over five years.
"Of course there is a group of people who deny the reality of climate change. They are the enemies of us all," Mr. Rudd said.
Write to Sunil Raghu at Sunil.Raghu@dowjones.com