Billionaire philanthropist George Soros plans to invest up to $1 bn (£630m) in clean-energy technologies and donate $100m (£63m) to form an environmental advisory group to aid policymakers.

Soros has not given details of the investments he might make but told Bloomberg News, “I want to apply rather stringent criteria to the investments .... They should be profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem.”

Soros will also establish the Climate Policy Initiative, to be based in San Francisco, California, to which he will donate $10m (£6.3m) a year for 10 years.

The organisation will be headed by Thomas Heller, a professor at Stanford University Law School, who specialises in energy law and regulation and environmental law. It will offer an advisory service as well as acting as a watchdog and developing public policy.

“The problem of global warming is a political one at this point,” Soros told Bloomberg News. “The science is beyond dispute, but how do we achieve the objectives we all know are necessary?”