Spurred on by last week’s ambivalence at the climate summit in Thailand, mega-billionaire George Soros took it upon himself to invest $1 billion towards clean energy research. Soros, most known through his powerhouse hedge fund, Soros Fund Management L.L.C., said he was attempting to address the political problem of climate change by making this investment.

He also promised $100 million towards the creation of an environmental advisory group called the Climate Policy Initiative, which  “will be part advisory service, part policy developer and part watchdog” over the funds, according to Bloomberg business news.

Clearly these are large pools of investment, and they could not have come at a better time. Because of last year’s calamitous economic output, “new investments this year including research funded by governments and companies will total about $110 billion, 29 percent below 2008 and 26 percent off the 2007 total.” With a name like Soros behind the cause, however, I think it will only be a matter of time before those numbers pick way up again.