How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

by Bill Gates

We might as well try to create artificial intelligence using a 1960s mainframe computer.

as well as some technological advances. Utility companies will have to update the price of electricity throughout the day to account for shifts in supply and demand, for instance, and your water heater and electric car will have to be smart enough to take advantage of this price information and respond accordingly.

Technically, it’s possible to get crops to absorb nitrogen much more efficiently than they do, if farmers have the technology to monitor their nitrogen levels very carefully and apply fertilizer in just the right amount over the course of a growing season.

Now it’s time to turn our policy-making experience to the challenge at hand: zeroing out our greenhouse gas emissions. National leaders around the world will need to articulate a vision for how the global economy will make the transition to zero carbon.

Companies in the energy business spend an average of just 0.3 percent of their revenue on energy R&D. The electronics and pharmaceutical industries, by contrast, spend nearly 10 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

Why don’t landlords upgrade their buildings with more efficient appliances? Because they pass the energy bills on to their tenants, who often aren’t allowed to make the upgrades and who probably won’t live there long enough to reap the long-term benefits anyway. Neither of these barriers, you’ll notice, has much to do with cost.

markets, policy, and technology have to work in complementary ways.

the wind industry started moving down the learning curve.

The real value of government leadership in R&D is that it can take chances on bold ideas that might fail or might not pay off right away.

consider the Human Genome Project (HGP).

as we get closer to net-zero emissions, the carbon price could be set at the cost of direct air capture,

Imported goods would have to qualify too, which would address countries’ concerns that lowering emissions from their manufacturing sectors will make their products more expensive and put them at a competitive disadvantage.

U.S. emissions would be about 8 percent higher if you included all the products that Americans consume but are made elsewhere.

engaging in the political process is the most important single step that people from every walk of life can take to help avoid a climate disaster.

Make calls, write letters, attend town halls.

Demand more funding for clean energy R&D, a clean energy standard, a price on carbon,