By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – Stanford College acquired $1.1 billion, its largest ever present, from enterprise capitalist John Doerr to fund a brand new faculty targeted on local weather change, fueling a debate about whether or not billionaire donations are sufficient to fight the local weather disaster.

“Stanford’s first new faculty in 70 years will launch this fall because the Stanford Doerr College of Sustainability, recognizing a $1.1 billion present from John and (his spouse) Ann Doerr, the most important within the college’s historical past,” the California-based college mentioned in a press release on Wednesday.

“Local weather and sustainability goes to be the brand new pc science,” Doerr advised the New York Instances in an interview revealed Wednesday. He made his estimated fortune of over $11 billion investing in expertise corporations resembling Alphabet (NASDAQ:) Inc and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:) .

Doerr is amongst an inventory of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg, who lately have donated cash to fight local weather change.

Some consultants have mentioned the local weather disaster mustn’t rely upon the charity of billionaires and that governments must arrange correct taxation programs to ensure billionaires pay their justifiable share.

The present is the most important ever to a college for the institution of a brand new faculty, and is the second largest present to a tutorial establishment, in line with the Chronicle of Larger Training.

Arun Majumdar, who has suggested the administrations of former U.S. President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden on power points, has been named because the inaugural dean of the varsity which can open within the fall.