How NOT to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Bill Gates’s new book of tech-to-save-the-world ignores the most robust solutions.
Snap Review
The good: A pretty neat job of summarising the potential for technological breakthroughs to assist with reducing emissions in different sectors. And some good suggestions of how to support research into new technologies.
The bad: Doesn’t actually quantify how tech solutions can get us to net zero, so it falls well short of a plan to avoid climate disaster.
The ugly: Gates rightly calls for improved quality of life for those in poverty, but alongside this promotes unnecessary consumption by even the wealthy. That’s despite the detrimental impact it has on those in poverty and the environment.
We must discuss, critique, and debate any plan that is largely cooked up in the mind of an individual. In this article, I give my input to that. As well as criticism, I highlight the approaches that Gates has ignored but which must be included in any plan as they compliment his tech-focused approach.
Does Gates really think increasing consumption will help?
Capitalism celebrates consumption, and so does Gates. He represents a prime example of the kind of activity that capitalism encourages. In this book, he not only says we must allow increased consumption for those in poverty but justifies high consumption for everyone, even himself. Reducing consumption is mainly dismissed in this book: “We cannot get to zero emissions simply — or even mostly — by flying or driving less.”, Gates says and moves on. Even though none of his tech solutions provide a silver bullet either.
But Gates knows what’s important to his happiness: “I like grapes and enjoy eating them year-round. But I can do that only because of container ships that bring fruit from South America.”. Well, if Gates can’t go any part of the year without grapes, then I guess we must provide them at any cost. This should be a ridiculous statement, but many people in rich countries have been made to think it’s is normal. At certain times it’s probably necessary to ship food around to ensure good nutrition for everyone, and I am not suggesting I think there’s anything wrong with an exotic treat. However, we’ve got some growing up to do if we expect to get what we want, whenever we want it. There are consequences, and, given his charitable work, Gates should know that the consequences often fall hardest on those in poverty.
If consumption increased to such an extent that everyone was to have a Gates-sized carbon footprint, how long would we have to get to net-zero whilst keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius? Full calculations at the end of the article, but using a recent estimate of Gates’s carbon footprint, I found that we would only have 2 weeks!
But hold on, Gates pays for direct air capture to offset his emissions. Studies suggest that there is upwards of 10 trillion tons of carbon storage capacity. If a world of Bills offset their emissions through direct air capture, then we would fill 10 trillion tons in just over 2 months. So we’d have to hope that 10 trillion tons was a gross underestimate and that such consumption wouldn’t destroy some other aspect of our environment before we got to net zero.
Thankfully everyone doesn’t have the same level of consumption as Bill Gates, which should leave us at least a decade or two to get net zero. So, instead of continuing to drive everyone towards absurd consumption levels, we should be learning how we can reduce consumption and maintain our quality of life. If the top 10% of people by income reduced their emissions to the average of the rest, then we would have almost twice as long to find a way to net zero. And unlike waiting for technological breakthroughs, reducing consumption can start immediately.
Finally, reducing consumption is not in conflict with innovation. For example, if we signal to the aviation sector that we will fly less until there are proper low-carbon planes in the sky, then that is much more of an incentive to invent those planes and get them operational than if we keep flying regardless of the damage.
Real plans to avoid climate disaster and stuff Gates ignored
Gates’ book is supposed to be a plan to avoid climate disaster, but really it is a quantified summary of the current state of affairs and unquantified wishful thinking that technological breakthroughs will save the day. I am not against investing in technology, but it is not going to be enough. If you want a real plan, which considers all the technologies Gates describes and more, then see the international collaboration effort of scientists and governments to draw together the state of human knowledge on the topic. Or for an example of how this can be applied at national level, see the UK Committee on Climate Change reports. I do think Bill Gates can provide a valuable viewpoint on the topic, but his claim that this book provides a solution pales in comparison to the extensive work done over the past few decades.
Gates suffers from a businessman/geek/scientist mindset (which I can sympathise with) of trying to constrain the problem in order to find a neat solution. Unfortunately, in this case, it has resulted in an unblinkered focus on greenhouse gases whilst ignoring the many other simultaneous environmental problems we are causing. Gates states: “There is nothing wrong with using more energy as long as it’s carbon free,” ignoring, for example, the potential destruction of wilderness that may go hand-in-hand.
Oher kinds of environmental damage can be harder to quantify and understand than climate change but, in many cases, are in at least as dire a situation. Examples include destruction of half the global wilderness within a human lifetime, sperm counts of westerners more than halving since the 1970s, loss of agricultural soil fertility worldwide with 30–40 years remaining before the “eradication of soil fertility” in the UK.
How can we even start to get our head around such an enormous number of problems? Answer: Doughnut economics, which combines goals of good quality of life for everyone with avoiding damaging exploitation of any aspect of the environment.
Despite its flaws, by providing a concise climate change narrative, Gates’s book does have the potential to open up discussion of reducing emissions if approached with a critical mind. To do so, the reader must broaden out Gates’s comments to consider environmental issues not related to greenhouse gases. I would encourage anyone reading the book to expand upon the useful questions that Gates highlights for climate discussions.
Three more questions to ask in every climate conversation
In Chapter 3, Gates provides 5 questions to ask in every climate conversation:
- What proportion of global emissions are we talking about?
- What’s your plan for cement?
- How much power are we talking about?
- How much space do you need?
- How much is this going to cost?
Not a bad set, in my opinion, but I think there are three missing which Gates is in severe need of:
What are the co-benefits? In considering space taken up by different energy sources, Gates says that wind farms and solar take up much more space for the Watts of power generated. This disregards the co-benefits of wind and solar. Solar can be placed on rooves, taking up basically no space and also generating electricity at the point of use. Meanwhile, for wind farms, the space between turbines is not redundant — it can be used for agriculture, for example. Many traditional, nature-based, or reduced-consumption approaches have co-benefits that can help us solve the vast array of environmental problems beyond greenhouse gases.
What are the limitations? Everything is limited. Solar energy has a limit, we are limited by space, and there is a limit to how much carbon can be captured and stored. At 10 trillion tons of CO2, there is a lot of capacity. But it’s not infinite, and, as I’ve said, if everyone had the same carbon footprint as Gates and paid for direct air capture, we would use up that 10 trillion tons of storage in about 2 months. That makes considering the limitations seem a bit more relevant.
What negative effects will it have on humans or the environment? In my experience, economists love to claim that those criticising growth have been proven wrong in the past when technological breakthroughs have allowed further growth. But those economists ignore that these new technologies generally work by increasing the exploitation of the environment and, in doing so, cause more problems down the line. Gates provides a great example. He espouses the wonders of Norman Borlaug and his semi-dwarf wheat, which increased dependency on fertiliser, thereby increasing nitrogen pollution, which is causing as significant damage to our environment as climate change. If Gates, entrepreneurs, and inventors continue to over-simplify our damage to the environment, then their saviour inventions will be a plaster on a gaping wound, as with so many previous so-called breakthroughs.
A few quick rebuttals…
I have hopefully given some starting points to any readers wanting to approach Bill Gates’ book with a critical mind. Below, I pick a few final quotes to respond to, which illustrate some further points.
- “I stepped into a warehouse in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and saw something that thrilled me: thousands of tons of synthetic fertilizer piled as high as snowdrifts,” Gates marvels.
I would rather have the real snowdrifts but each to their own. Whatever your preference, artificial fertiliser is far from “magical,” as Gates goes on to claim. We know exactly how it gives us what we want, that’s not magic. Meanwhile, we are far from understanding the harm it does. Compost, on the other hand, can be magical. It takes our waste, turns it into nutrients that can be returned to the soil from where they were taken to grow our food. It is the closest human innovation to natural processes that I can think of. A perfect example of circular economy.
- “It’s been estimated that if we couldn’t make synthetic fertiliser, the world’s population would be 40 or 50 percent smaller”, exclaims Gates.
So what? I wasn’t aware we had a goal to increase world population.
- “We can cut down on meat…”
Although Gates talks at length about meat alternatives, there is no mention of pulses. That’s despite them having been a cheap and nutritious alternative form of protein to meat for thousands of years. This is the biggest omission of the book. If you need any persuading that we should be looking to successful, traditional diets when reducing meat consumption, then check out the blue zones cookbook.
- “Rich countries are best suited to develop innovative climate solutions,” says Gates.
Rich countries have proven they are great at innovating to exploit the environment. They have led us to the point of several existential environmental threats. It’s time we ask for leadership from countries that have managed to improve social welfare whilst limiting their environmental damage.
- “The real value of government leadership in R&D is that it can take chance... This is especially true of scientific enterprises that remain too risky for the private sector to pursue” Gates explains.
Oh yeah, governments don’t have many responsibilities on their budgets, only ensuring the security, health, and education of their citizens. Capitalist billionaires, on the other hand, normal claim to provide the funding of great innovation. Hold on, isn’t risky investment their role then? What are those trillions of dollars in tax havens doing at the moment?
- “Cost of reducing emissions with economy reduction is high during COVID,” bemoans Gates.
Yeah, duh! It was hardly a targeted approach to reduce emissions. The costs of thoughtful consumption reduction cannot be calculated from pandemic events. What might be represented is the economic damages we will see if climate change is not curbed.
- “We’ll be producing 50% more steel by mid-century than we do today,” proclaims Gates.
Will we? Given its huge emissions, how about we think about ways to use less of it?
Conclusions
If this book was called something like “Technological Breakthroughs to Help Address Climate Change,” maybe I would see less need to criticise. But this book is not called that because Gates is not being honest about what he can bring to the table. He seems to believe he knows the world and how it should be. And that world is unsurprisingly about as close to business-as-usual as he could realistically cry out for at this time.
I would not go as far as to suggest people should not read this book if it appeals to them. But I do say, if you are not familiar with the progressive approach of doughnut economics and a circular economy, then get on and read about that first.
Calculations
Below are some calculations I have made for statements in the article above.
- How long does a world of Bill Gates’ have to get to zero? (13 days)
Bill Gates’ Estimated 2018 Carbon Emissions (E_Gates)
= 7,500 tons CO2e per year (~ 20 tons CO2e per day)
Global population 2018 (P) = 7,600,000,000 people
Hypothetical emissions from a world of Bill Gates’ (E_GatesWorld)
= P x E_Gates [per day] = 150 billion tons CO2e per day
Carbon budget remaining to have a 66% chance of keeping global mean temperature below 2 degree Celcius (B) = 1,000 billion tons of CO2
Hypothetical days remaining for GatesWorld to get to net-zero (assuming a linear decrease to zero emissions, i.e. number of days of E_GatesWorld/2) = B / (E_GatesWorld/2) = 13 days
- How long would GatesWorld have if it also captured and stored the carbon? (about 3 months)
Identified carbon storage (S) = at least 10 trillion tons CO2 storage globally
Time before this lower estimate of storage is used up = S/E_GatesWorld = 67 days
GatesWorld would have about 3 months (13+67 days) to get its act together.
- How much longer would the real world, have to get to zero if the richest reduced emissions?
Emissions of top 10% of people by income globally (E_10) = 52% of total
Emissions of bottom 90% by income (E_90) = 48% of total
The average emissions per decile of bottom 90 percent = 48%/9 = 5% of total
If the top 10% dropped their emissions to this average, then global emissions would be 48%+5%=53% of the current total. Therefore, if the richest lived like the majority, or found a way to have the same environmental impact, then we would have almost twice as long to transition to net zero. That said, there is substantial growth in emissions in globally-middle income groups, so there is an equally difficult challenge to establish how this middle-income group can improve their quality of life without increasing their carbon emissions. The lowest 50% of the global population accounts for less than 10% of emissions and less than 10% of growth in emissions since 1990.
Thank you to Philippa Chalmers for her helpful comments whilst writing this article.
