30 | New Scientist | 20 February 2021
Book
How to Avoid a
Climate Disaster
Bill Gates
Allen Lane“I am aware that I am an imperfect
messenger on climate change,”
writes Bill Gates in his latest book,
which spells out why he thinks the
world can get to zero greenhouse
gas emissions by 2050.
The philanthropist and
Microsoft co-founder is, by his
own admission, incredibly rich,
wedded to techno-fixes and has
a big carbon footprint. The latter
extends to a troubling failure to
walk the talk, with Gates revealing
in the book that he flew to the 2015
Paris climate summit by private
jet. Greta Thunberg he is not.
On the other hand, he has
an eye for detail, a knack for
explaining complex issues simply
and an attractively unabashed
interest in fertiliser depots and
power stations. Moreover, his
foundation’s work on issues
including health and poverty
across the globe has given him
a better awareness than many
writers of how a carbon fix that
works for the US may not work for
India. And unlike some climate
books siloed in just science or
politics or business, he looks
across all the sectors needed to
eliminate humanity’s annual
output of 51 gigatonnes of
greenhouse gases.
Dense with numbers and facts
and peppered with charts and
tables, it is clear Gates would
like this book to be the climate
solution equivalent of the late
Hans Rosling’s Factfulness, an
excellent dissection of skewed
perceptions of the state of the
world. “When we have a fact-based
view of climate, we can see that weA climate call to arms
Bill Gates may be a flawed messenger on global warming, but his book is still
a fine primer on how to get ourselves out of this mess, says Adam Vaughanhave some of the things we need
to avoid a climate disaster, but not
all of them,” Gates writes.
For the most part, he succeeds.
Gates is strong on why it will be
so hard to get to zero emissions –
not least the inertia in the energy
industry that he identifies – and
explaining how much more there
is to do beyond generating moreViews Culture
COURTE
SY
OFTHE^ AUTHORgenerating loads more clean
electricity, electrifying everything
we possibly can and spending
loads more on R&D to sort the
rest (aviation, shipping, heavy
industry). He is also good on the
dull but vital detail of policy to
make it all happen.
Gates is less strong when it
comes to the role of food and land
use. While overly optimistic about
technologies that haven’t been
cracked, including nuclear fusion,
he is unnecessarily pessimistic
about things that evidence shows
can be done, like eating less meat.
On this, he says that, for cultural
reasons, “I just don’t think it’s
realistic”. Yet the trend to less
consumption of animal products
is under way in some countries.
The UK government’s sober
climate advisers want and think it
is realistic for people to eat at least
a fifth less meat and dairy by 2050.
Other weak spots include
an almost unquestioning
enthusiasm for nuclear power,
with scant paragraphs on the
high costs holding it back and
its intractable waste problem. In
contrast, there are reams of pages
on the challenge of intermittency
posed by renewables, which is
real but overblown here. The
pandemic’s climate consequences
are alluded to, but not in any
depth, which is a shame. And
carbon emission removal options
are only briefly touched on.
Still, these are minor flaws.
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is
clear, concise on a colossal subject
and intelligently holistic in its
approach to the problem. Gates
may not be the perfect messenger
on this issue, but he has written
a fine primer on how to get
ourselves out of this mess. ❚solar power and making more
electric cars. Pages on the
inherently carbon-intensive
process of making stuff that
underpins the modern world,
especially concrete and steel,
are clear-eyed and well done.
You might not have expected
it from a former software
engineer, but Gates can write.
Personal experience is mixed
with a refreshing honesty about
how hard decarbonising the
world will be.
Nice prose would be for
nought if his solutions were amiss.
Happily, he gets the big stuff right:Billionaire Bill Gates is
exploring ways to avert
a carbon catastrophe“ Gates reveals that he
flew to the 2015 Paris
climate summit by
private jet. Greta
Thunberg he is not”