Bill Gates is heading up a fund worth more than $1bn to fight climate change by investing in new ways of producing clean energy.

The Microsoft co-founder will lead a group of investors whose combined wealth totals some $170bn, including Richard Branson, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba

Mr Gates says the fund, called Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), could pump money into "anything that leads to cheap, clean, reliable energy", QZ.com reported.

Investing in energy is a complex business, he told the site, and so the market is not crowded. He said: "People think you can just put $50m in and wait two years and then you know what you got. In this energy space, that’s not true at all.

"It’s such a big market that the value if you’re really providing a big portion of the world’s energy, the value of that will be super, super big."

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study in July estimated that between 2006 and 2011 clean energy investors lost more than half the £25bn they put into the sector.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke – filled with the carbon that is driving climate change – drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. “Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals,” says the photographer. “Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow.” Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a “public health emergency”. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

BEV aims to invest in bringing greenhouse gas-reducing technology to market, including in transport, industrial processes and agriculture.

It is likely to look first at ways of storing energy. Creating more efficient means of storing power could allow more people to use energy sources, like wind turbines and solar panels, that only function intermittently because they are dependent on the weather.

US President-elect Donald Trump recently appointed climate-change sceptic Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr Gates said: "The dialogue with the new administration as it comes in about how they see energy research will be important.

"The general idea that research is a good deal fortunately is not a partisan thing."

Last summer Mr Gates said governments should invest in research into renewable energy on the same scale as the Manhattan Project and the Apollo moon missions.

He also announced he was planning to increase his personal investments in carbon capture technologies, next-generation nuclear, new kinds of batteries and other types of research in the field.