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Bill Gates
wants investors and governments to put more
money into protecting lives on a warmer
planet. In a lengthy memo, he lays out his current
view of the climate problem and
concludes that “human welfare” must be the top
priority.
Meanwhile, the first-ever decline in global
emissions is just around the corner, the UN
says. By 2035, they’ll have fallen 10% from
2019 levels, an unequivocal sign that humanity
is bending the curve and cutting the
greenhouse gas pollution that’s baking the
planet.
The data made
public today would be cause for major
celebration if it wasn’t for the fact that
it’s not nearly close to what scientists say
is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change
— a 60% decline by 2035.
We also have
the latest
on hurricane Melissa as it approaches
Jamaica.
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Gates
sounds the adaptation alarm
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By Olivia
Rudgard
Bill Gates, the
billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of
Microsoft Corp., says it’s time to adopt a
more measured tone when addressing climate
change and the threat it poses to the world.
In a memo published on
Tuesday, he called out what he characterized as
a “doomsday view of climate change.”
According to Gates,
who has long stood out as a vocal defender of
the need to fight global warming, prioritizing
the fight against rising temperatures above all
else means that issues such as human health and
equality risk being overshadowed.
Gates. Photographer:
Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
“Climate change is
serious, but we’ve made great progress,” he said
in the memo. “We need to keep backing the
breakthroughs that will help the world reach
zero emissions. But we can’t cut funding for
health and development — programs that help
people stay resilient in the face of climate
change — to do it.”
The upshot, Gates
says, is that it’s now “time to put human
welfare at the center of our climate strategies,
which includes reducing the green premium to
zero and improving agriculture and health in
poor countries.”
Gates, who this
year laid off some staff at his climate group,
Breakthrough Energy, warned that the doomsday
outlook has led climate advocates to focus too
narrowly on near-term emissions goals, diverting
resources away from more effective solutions to
improve life on a hotter planet. He said the
United Nations climate summit starting in Brazil
next month, COP30, should seek to focus on how
best to adapt to reality and ensure human
welfare is a priority.
“This is a chance
to refocus on the metric that should count even
more than emissions and temperature change:
improving lives,” Gates said. “COP30 is taking
place at a time when it’s especially important
to get the most value out of every dollar spent
on helping the poorest.”
The billionaire
said he’s aware his comments will draw criticism
from some climate advocates, and underlined his
concern that he still acknowledges that climate
change “needs to be solved.” He also said his
view on the matter has been informed by his work
with the Gates Foundation, whose top priority is
health and development in poor countries.
“Sometimes the
world acts as if any effort to fight climate
change is as worthwhile as any other,” Gates
said. “As a result, less-effective projects are
diverting money and attention from efforts that
will have more impact on the human condition:
namely, making it affordable to eliminate all
greenhouse gas emissions and reducing extreme
poverty with improvements in agriculture and
health.”
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