Bill Gates Says 'Brute Force' Climate Policies Won't Work - The New York Times
Bill Gates Says ‘Brute Force’ Climate Policies Won’t Work - The New York Times
Bill Gates Says ‘Brute Force’ Climate Policies Won’t Work
Speaking at a live event at The Times Center in New York, the billionaire philanthropist argued for a pragmatic, technology-driven approach to global warming.
Bill Gates Champions Innovation as Way to Combat Climate Change
“Are we the science people or are we the idiots?” asked Bill Gates, during a discussion about his pragmatic strategy to fighting climate change.
“If you try to do climate things brute force, you’ll sometimes get people say, ‘Hey, I like climate, I’m for climate, but I don’t want to bear that cost and reduce my standard of living.’ The political realities are such that without innovation, it’s unlikely, particularly in middle-income countries, that the brute force approach will be successful. I’m the person who’s doing the most on climate in terms of the innovation and how we can square multiple goals. I don’t use some of the less proven approaches.” Moderator: “Such as.” “I don’t plant trees. “There’s a lot of people who are very enamored with trees. We’ve got trees on this stage. Some people would even say that if you just planted enough trees, it could take care of the climate issue altogether.” “And that’s complete nonsense.” “OK.” “I mean, are we the science people or are we the idiots? Which one do we want to be?”
Bill Gates, the multibillionaire founder of Microsoft, argued for a pragmatic, technology-driven approach to fighting climate change on Thursday.
“If you try to do climate brute force, you will get people who say, ‘I like climate but I don’t want to bear that cost and reduce my standard of living,’” Mr. Gates said at the Climate Forward event hosted by The New York Times. “Without innovation, it’s unlikely, particularly in middle-income countries, that the brute force approach will be successful.”
Mr. Gates also said winning more bipartisan support was needed in order for policy to actually stick. “Republicans for climate change action are gold, you know,” he said. “That’s got to be a number that somehow we manage to increase over time.”
“You can’t have a climate policy that when one party is in charge goes full speed ahead and stops cold,” he added. “These are 30-year investments in steel factories, new ways of making meat.”
Mr. Gates, who in recent weeks has espoused an everything-will-be-fine approach to the climate crisis, was asked whether he could reconcile that stance with the reality of extreme weather around the globe.
“I’m the person who is doing the most on climate in terms of the innovation and how we can square multiple goals,” said Mr. Gates, a co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major donor to health- and climate-related causes. “There’s very limited money for causes to reduce inequity in the world. And no temperate country is going to become uninhabitable.”
Instead, he said, he is taking a more pragmatic approach and drawing a line at untested remedies like planting a trillion trees.
“Are we the science people or are we the idiots?” he said. “Which one do we want to be?”
Remy Tumin is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics. More about Remy Tumin
Learn More About Climate Change
Have questions about climate change?
Our F.A.Q. will tackle your climate questions, big and small.
Singapore is rethinking its sweltering urban areas to dampen the effects of climate change.
Can it be a model for other cities?
New data reveals stark disparities in how different U.S. households contribute to climate change.
See your neighborhood’s climate impact.
Did you know the ♻ symbol
doesn’t mean something is actually recyclable? Read on about how we got here, and what can be done.
The United States is
pivoting away from fossil fuels and toward wind, solar and other renewable energy, even in areas dominated by the oil and gas industries.
Overuse of America’s groundwater in a changing climate is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed.
Half the world could soon face dangerous heat. We measured the daily toll
it is already taking.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”