Summary Bill Gates on Climate: “Are We Science People or Are We the Idiots?” - YouTube (Youtube) youtu.be
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Speaker 0 Good afternoon. Bill, thank you so much for joining us here. You think about climate change really comprehensively. So we've got lot of ground to cover today. But I wanna start almost at sort of the highest most existential level.
Speaker 0 And there's been so much doom and gloom but also a lot of hope. We've been talking about this tension all day. And I want to contrast a couple things I've heard over the last week or so. We have but United Nations Secretary general Gut gutierrez, saying that the Earth is about to become uni inhabit. Mike Bloomberg, who was on the stage with me earlier this morning?
Speaker 0 Said that this was something that could kill every person on earth and yet when I heard you speak on Tuesday. You said the planet is going to be fine. I want you to help us reconcile these contrasting statements. Do you think Gutierrez and Bloomberg are being hyper or are you really so sang about this issue?
Speaker 1 Well, I'm you the largest fund of action on climate including grant money, innovation money, you know I'm out in Africa and the foundation work seen farmers who are deeply affected. And that's why you, I chose to get educated and get involved going back around the turn of the century because that's where I'd moved on my full time work from Microsoft. And you know this was a topic that I got engaged in. Climate tries to use science and numbers and look at okay, various levels, What are those effects? It's mostly see, you know, there are on humanity that planet in a less less so it's a fairly resilient.
Speaker 1 Thing. But, you know, the reason I'm engaged is because it affects human welfare.
Speaker 0 Right? And I wanna talk about the issue of health in just a sec. The this issue of planetary boundaries though is it seems to be coming up more and more. When we see oceans, reaching a hundred temperatures on the surface when we see coral bleaching when you see the biodiversity of os and the destruction of rainforest forests. To hear you say the the planet is really resilient.
Speaker 0 I think what's surprise a lot of people given just how dramatically the earth is changing in such a short amount of time. Okay? The So do do you really do you really believe that some of those... Some of that damage that I just described could really be taken care of. Mitigated in a short amount of time in a way that doesn't go on to compromise human welfare and health.
Speaker 1 Was I say, I'm in very involved in climate. There's been progress. You, should climate be the only thing we do. Should we buy measles vaccine? Should we pursue polio era ratification?
Speaker 1 You know, I believe that human welfare can be improved in many ways. And climate is an important way. Make sure that we continue the progress that we've had. Mh. But it how do you balance, you, should you buy measles vaccine to you know, when we go out to raise money for polio, we're raising less money now than before.
Speaker 1 Our organization is the most articulate going around the world, saying rich country should be more generous. Whether it's for climate mitigation, climate adaptation, health budgets, you know, vaccines, you know so we're on full blast saying that equity demands we'd be more generous. Climate is 1 of those causes. And if you thought you know the plan was gonna break into, I I guess you'd say, hey, stop wasting money on Measles vaccination because you know, if that is the case then who cares about kids dying measles. But I also care about that.
Speaker 0 Right. And as I understand, you actually came to your work in climate through your work in global health. And you've made stunning advances as has the global community in reducing disease and early mortality all over the globe, I wonder though, is there a concern in your mind that some of the effects of climate change might erase some of those gains in global health that we've achieved through medicine. For example, when hotter temperatures are making malaria mosquitoes, prolific in higher altitude cities in Africa, does that create a new challenge that again, is going to roll back some of those gains we've already
Speaker 1 achieved? Absolutely. There's no way we'll... You know, the in the year 10002000 children under 5 died. And we've cut that in half.
Speaker 1 Were down at 4600000.0 deaths per year. It's 1 of the greatest achievements of humanity. It was the actually the centerpiece of what we called the millennium development goals. You fortunately, we're not going to go back to 10000000 children or dying. Malaria is still out there at 400000, having trouble raising money, Polio is still out there para kids, having trouble raising money.
Speaker 1 So there's the actual lens that I see climate through happens to go more through malnutrition. You know, of the greatest injustices in the world is that in these poor countries, a third of the kids, don't grow up with full physical or mental development. And that's because it's more difficult to grow food, And so helping them in these near equator regions where the vast majority of the impact is, that's a very just thing given that these are not the people who cause this prop in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 0 But it sounds like you have a lot of faith in adaptation that with the right crop development, with the right farming practices with the right medications, large swath of humanity That again, many people are painting and really apocalyptic terms, suggesting that whole nations might become uni unacceptable. It sounds like I don't want to put words in your mouth that you believe that there's a real pathway towards using technology and the advances in medicine and agriculture to allow continued human flourishing in some of those most exposed regions to extreme temperatures.
Speaker 1 That Well, I'm the person who's doing the most on climate in terms of, you, the innovation and how we can square multiple goals. That. You know, we still care about children dying, honest, at least we do. And, you know, how can you do claim it effectively there's very limited money for causes to reduce an equity in the world. And no temperate...
Speaker 1 Country gonna become uni inhabit.
Speaker 0 Okay. That's that's Good hear.
Speaker 1 The claim people have to decide, are we the science number, people or or you really want to make your arguments based on what you actually know you about, okay, how much is the planet itself at risk, for example.
Speaker 0 Okay. I wanna come back to some of those points I wanna talk about technology though. Here in the United States, we're ex experiencing a real renaissance, and Wind and solar of electric vehicles, batteries. Some of these technologies are starting to see real exponential, sort of hockey stick like growth that you'd be familiar with in your time in the tech industry. Does the rapid gains in some of these specific technologies that are obviously reducing emissions give you oh, or change your calculation that maybe we'll be able to reach some of these very lofty net 0 goals for our broader economy, sooner than perhaps we might have thought even just a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 Because the number of source of emissions is very large. And because some of those are extremely hard to ab abatement. 60 percent of emissions comes from middle income. Mh. And so even if the rich countries go to 0, your your delta temperature effect is very tiny, tiny.
Speaker 1 The rich countries we do have to lead and you can look sector by sector, you know, solar, now the interconnect limitation. The transmission limitation. So we created a profit group that's about the grid, implementing the Ira very quickly. So we created profit in group that we fund called them testing in our future is just to accelerate those things. In every area of a mission, and every policy we need more philanthropic dollars.
Speaker 1 We need more smart people. We need more consumers willing to buy green products. So there's nothing You know, we're not on a path to get to, you know, a 1.5 degree limitation climate. It's changing the entire industrial base. And you know so it's an extremely hard thing to do.
Speaker 1 Innovation gives you a chance of doing it. And what I've seen in the innovation space you know, that I committed to create breakthrough and 20 15, it's gone far better than I would have expected. Even in very tough areas like steel, cement, agriculture, hydrogen. What we're seeing is very promising. Mh.
Speaker 1 But not at a level where you'd say, oh, this, you know, move on from this, that's why we built this incredible team. We partner with governments and plant, you it's got many pieces it's got fellows, venture, policies, open source grid models and we've started a dozen film philanthropic organizations that are to accelerate. These things. It's you know, it's a serious effort.
Speaker 0 Absolutely. We're not done yet to your point. Mh. I wonder though when you think about some of those technologies that you're investing. You mentioned the hard to ab evade sector, you're also very interested and involved with things like modular nuclear.
Speaker 0 And I think for some people they think about, you next generation nuclear, the potential for fusion and hold these out as hopes that maybe they will be some of those technologies, that do sort of make a step change rather than sort of this more incremental progress that we've been seeing so far. What's your thoughts on how close some of those new technologies might be, and what the challenges might be in terms of permitting or regulation to getting them implemented at scale.
Speaker 1 Yes. So we do open source grid models where you can look at for every country, because again, it's rich countries are... A very small piece of this. They have a special obligation to get to 0 first and to get these things on the learning curve, so the green premium mix cost being clean is driven to 0, so you actually have a way of getting diffusion into middle income countries. You, sadly, if you try to subsidize it, you're at many multiples of what the foreign aid budget is.
Speaker 1 And so it's just, you know, the voters aren't going to come up with that. So innovation is the only way you can achieve these goals. Doing the green grid is very hard because you're not just taking today's electricity, you're taking the electricity that's driving buses and cars and steel plants and direct air capture, you're having to come up with all the electricity. So it's you know, 2 and a half, 3 times larger. And that's very daunting and you can use these models and say, okay, We don't have any nuclear fusion.
Speaker 1 We don't have any nuclear fusion. We don't have any geothermal. We just have those limited set of things. That degree of difficulty and how long it's going to take practically is much, much higher. But we can't count on broad acceptance of vision.
Speaker 1 I, you know, put putting billions into that, it would make you know, new reactors with no high pressure, no after heat problems, different economics, it would be a helpful tool and The only reason that I do that is because of climate. It's not like I decided the nuclear industries a fun way to make money or something. And likewise Fusion, you know, there are 16 infusion companies. I'm an investor in 4 of those. It it's a question of when I would say, not only do we get fusion, but we get it in a form that can make cheap electricity.
Speaker 1 There's quite a variety of approaches. And you know, this deadline means that we're very much in a hurry, not only do we need to get things, but then, you know, the time it takes to deploy them, in the world at large, you're gonna to have to leave, you know, 20 to 30 years for some of those things. And you know, that pushes you past the deadline that we're all trying to achieve.
Speaker 0 Right. And what you just said is especially true in the global south where for all sorts of reasons. It's much harder to deploy capital for The clean energy investments, for example, all of which is to say it fossil fuels, particularly gas and coal are gonna be with us for many decades to come. It seems. A lot of people look at those numbers and, you know, throw their hands up of the air and say that this essentially ensures that the planet to use the secretary general's words, will become uni.
Speaker 0 What's your view on the fossil fuel industry? Again, some people really vi verify them. Other people today, Mike Bloomberg said, he views them as a part of the solution. How are you thinking about their role in this energy transition?
Speaker 1 Well, they're very heterogeneous group of companies. Some work in renewable, some provide R and D dollars to things like biofuels that could be an important substitute. They're found out today that if you try to make hydrocarbons illegal, that the voters would rebel against that. They like driving to work. There's a variety of practical things and you know so it there is a demand there.
Speaker 1 The idea is that you set a carbon tax, that's the same size as what it takes to do directed or cap. So... And but that would mean that you know, the cost of cement and gasoline and air travel would be dramatically higher.
Speaker 0 Right.
Speaker 1 Because we haven't an innovated film space. We have gigantic green premiums. And whenever voters are tested like in France, you put on a diesel tax. Well, they say, oh, those people will see they're richer than me, they somehow should pay this. In Germany, when you say, okay, we're gonna make you buy electric heat pumps.
Speaker 1 They they back off from it. So these If you try to do climate things brute force, you know, you'll sometimes get people say, hey, I like. Climbed it on for climate but I don't want to bear that cost and reduce reduce my standard of living, You know, I believe we should spend a lot of money on climate change. I believe we should have very high carbon taxes. The political realities are such that without innovation It's unlikely, particularly middle income countries that the brute force approach will be successful.
Speaker 0 Yeah. You mentioned carbon capture s situation a couple of times now. And that obviously people point to as an important part of the solution set going forward, but we've people we've seen the people sort of view it in different ways. Some people gore today than that chair said that many people fossil view companies are using it as an excuse. To keep burning fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 0 While, others and included in your book, you present it as a important tool that will, you know, help mitigate that last vest of emissions as we're able to draw down in sector after sector. How do you think about carbon capture and its role. Is it being used as an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels or should it be developed as sort of this edge case that cleans up the last of the mess
Speaker 1 Well, there's no excuse for not getting to the point where we get to 0 Co2 emissions. You know. We in terms of avoiding, the unknowns of you what it's like to get certain temperature increases, you know, we have to get to 0 emissions. Mh. And that's a very daunting task.
Speaker 1 The, you know, the both the subs digitization and the non taxation of oil and gas is a barrier. If you if you could politically put that tax on. That's a very good thing. The scale of carbon capture is very hard to say, it's on 1 of these path dependent things. We don't want a path that's dependent on fusion.
Speaker 1 But we want to maximize the chance that that's among the tools we have available to get to deserve emission because it makes it's so much easier to have these very dense non weather dependent, near to the power load ways of making electricity. So Yes. In the breakthrough energy portfolio, we have a number of companies that are trying to bring the cost of carbon capture down. You know, today, I'm the biggest individual customer in and frameworks works, which does carbon capture over 300 dollars a ton. There are companies that will get us to 100 dollars or well below 100 dollars but even so for 10 percent of the emissions 50 dollars a ton.
Speaker 1 That's 500000000000 a year. 3 times all foreign an aid. So how much that will scale up? I'd say that's an unknown because you know, how is that financed?
Speaker 0 Can you say a bit more about something you just mentioned, you're the largest individual customer at kind works. Commerce is 1 of the most scaled and advanced carbon capture and s companies. What does it mean that you're the single biggest customer. What does that look like? What like what kind of?
Speaker 0 Yeah. But but are you offsetting your own personal emissions with that? And what can you give us a sense of the scale of that?
Speaker 1 Yeah It's been, like 10000000 a year.
Speaker 0 Okay. And and just a a variety of things.
Speaker 1 The climb works just part of it. Buying electric heat pumps for low income housing where they get the benefits of lower monthly bills and I take the carbon credits for those things. There's in a solar panels. There's a huge variety of things. I don't use some of the less proven approaches, such as.
Speaker 1 I don't plant trees Lot there's a lot
Speaker 0 of people 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... Complete nonsense.
Speaker 1 Okay. I mean, are we the science people are we the idiots? Which 1 do we want to be?
Speaker 0 It's I'm gonna call my friend Mark Benny off and ask him what do he thinks? At the very moment that we're trying to find all these new sources of clean energy, energy demands around the world are rising in just about every economy including here in the Us in some measures driven largely by data centers and the demands of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. As someone who is such a pioneer in the technology industry, do you have any thoughts on the role of the tech industry itself? In helping create this problem that you're now trying to help solve?
Speaker 1 Well, the I would say the tech companies because they are very profitable and they can afford to take long term view. They will be a among the pioneer buyers of long term storage, green energy solutions. Now the way you do the metric, them. You got to keep them honest that it's not, you, just buy a certificate and say, oh, the green electrons come to me and the dirty electrons go to all those other people in this to you you can always look at dollars per ton. If somebody thinks they're doing something at well under 100 dollars per ton, you should be skeptical.
Speaker 1 You know, the climb works is kind of a clearing price and there are a few things like avoiding methane emissions actually that are pretty low cost, but not that many, you and this is a gigantic scale problem, The induced electricity demand in the U. Us is not not very large. We'll get it is we elect electrified cars, buses, industry, home heating, replacing natural gas. So we will get about a 2 and a half times electricity increase, The data center load and that be something like 4 percent or 5 percent and there's are some really brilliant things particularly in terms of Ai execution that may drive that down. Back down below 1 percent.
Speaker 0 The word policy is in the title of this session. And I I know you personally intervened and help save the Ira at a a pretty pivotal moment last year when it was looked like it might fall apart. I wonder how you think about its record so far? What is the implementation of it actually look like? And more broadly, how you rank president Biden climate policy.
Speaker 0 A lot of people are very supportive of the Ira, of course. But also very, very frustrated that he continues to allow drilling on federal lands.
Speaker 1 Well, you, we should tax, oil and gas them out of where it comes from. We, you know, the idea that okay, if we don't drill it here if it's un tax, it's gonna to get drilled somewhere. The The key thing is that you've got to take this external, which is the Co2 mission and make it unattractive. And as you do that tax, then you have alternative things come in, you know, which in the case of passenger cars, Okay, getting down to the low and is hard, but we we need to get there. You know, the Ira is a very dramatic.
Speaker 1 Set of money to bootstrap key technologies, including into areas that most climate people don't talk about. I mean, industrial emissions. If you don't solve that, the whole thing doesn't get solved. And, you know what it does for green hydrogen, what it does for in storage. Some things that does in transmission, bootstrapping some director capture.
Speaker 1 It's a fantastic climate bill. If people think some other politician would have gotten more great, they should vote for that person. But we're trying to implement as quickly as possible. There's a lot of funding opportunities for people who care about that. We're helping.
Speaker 1 Doe, work with treasury to get the regulations, get those written well. You we're the faster we implement, the more people see the benefits of jobs, particularly in areas where the hydrocarbon jobs be less over time. So, the implementation phase of that bill plus, the 2 bills that were bipartisan, that ships and Science and the infrastructure bill. It's just an amazing opportunity, but we have to make sure people see it. You know, it's kinda like obamacare first people like, yeah, what is this thing.
Speaker 1 Okay, you know, 10 years later, they're like, oh, I get it. We don't have that much time to keep this thing intact. You know, It's not guaranteed. The tax credits necessarily. Laughed out the full 10 years because they can be rep appealed if you get a change in political control.
Speaker 0 Earlier today I ask A gore, how he is someone who spend his whole career in politics, explained the Republican party's continued opposition to climate action. What's your answer to that having worked in Washington to get the Ira passed? How do you explain the re of so many Republican elected leaders? To engage with this issue in a way that scientists and other sort of climate advocates feel is in good faith.
Speaker 1 You know, I have a lot of partners who fund republicans and engage republicans in a pretty deep way. You know there's some interesting data on young republicans and their commitment to this. You know, so my reaction is not to demon eyes, but rather say, okay, what why are, you know, if we're so convinced and we're actually, know, gonna stick to the facts you know, why have we failed to bring more people along? And this is a super important thing. So whenever I meet, know people who do climate fl I'm like, oh, you're...
Speaker 1 You know how to connect out and some of them have a history of working with Republicans. I think that's extremely valuable. You can't have a climate policy that when 1 party's in charge goes full speed ahead and then it stops dead cold. These are 30 year investments in steel factories, fertilizer factories, new ways of making meat. I mean, it's...
Speaker 1 It requires a constant full speed ahead in order for the Us to be an example, which if we're not, then, you know, it's not likely we'll succeed.
Speaker 0 You just made mentioned new ways of making meat. My very next guest is Gilbert alberto, Tomas, the global Ceo of Jb, the biggest meat packer. In the world. What would you say to him? I mean you can say it on their way out.
Speaker 0 But are there... Do you have question or challenges for a company like that with such an enormous scale that's operating in the Amazon how should they be thinking about their role and responsibility? And what do they need to do to change?
Speaker 1 Well, in some cases, we've got to out compete. The things that drive deforestation. Because the difficulty, you know yes, you protect this land, but the demand signal is still there this other land. So You we need to make the equivalent of palm oil cheaper than palm oil. Ideally meat, even though it's off, its initial excitement, the new generations coming along or far better.
Speaker 1 You so every industry whether it's Jb or people Type writers. They're always subject to significant innovation that changes the rules of the game. In this case, You know, there's a huge negative of external personality in terms of methane emission and land use that comes, broadly from agriculture. But from beef in in particular. And so, you know, we've got to fund the innovation almost at an t level so that we take that demand signal away.
Speaker 0 Thank you. I'm I'm gonna bring this up with them. Thank you for that. Sticking on the topic of agriculture, you earlier mentioned some of your own efforts to account for your own emissions by being the largest customer of time works. You're also the largest or among excuse me, the largest personal owners of farmland in the country.
Speaker 0 In your book, how to avoid a climate disaster. You have a whole chapter about agriculture and you write about the need to pursue regenerative practices, how much of that work is actually being done on the land you personally own, which I understand is made through your investment vehicles, but still nonetheless you own and control. Are you starting to use your personal farmland as a way to drive this kind of policy change that you wanna see?
Speaker 1 Yeah. I own 1 4 thousandth of the farmland and it was a not something I woke up and said, oh, I wanna to live on a farm or something. It's not green acres. And we run those farms very efficiently. We're using, there's a thing called pivot bio, which is a fe fertilizer or substitute, which just looks pretty fantastic.
Speaker 1 It's early days for that, but we've been the pilot customer. So there's a lot of practices we're able to try out. But, you know, as a percentage, it's it's as of my wealth or of the farmland, you know this is pretty small.
Speaker 0 Understood. Nevertheless, I just wonder how you think about it It sounds like you're starting to use it sort of as a laboratory for some of these products.
Speaker 1 Everything I do is climate conscious.
Speaker 0 And so you would you would make the argument that including... I I understand it's only 1 4 thousandth of the farmland in the United States perhaps, but if if if maybe I can even go with you to check some of it out. If we went there, would we see regenerative organic practices on that land? Not organic. Okay.
Speaker 1 Why not? Because that means using that means putting more pressure on deforestation by making less food per acre.
Speaker 0 Well, if the invitation ever arises, I will happily go walk some of that land with you. Another policy issue if I make. All week, there's been a lot of talk about proposed reforms to the World Bank, the Imf later this afternoon. Just a couple of hours. We're gonna have World Bank President Aj Bang, along with prime minister, Mia Motley Barbados.
Speaker 0 Right here on this stage. There has been just in these reform efforts and in the Bridget town initiative with which president prime minister Motley helped develop. A scenario sketched out. Where if the World bank changed some of its requirements, Some of the way it, it would be able to unlock trillions of dollars in private capital. This is sort of a dream people have on how we might be able to rapidly scale climate finance around the global south.
Speaker 0 Do you believe that's feasible
Speaker 1 I mean, I no. I mean, the numbers... Yes, you can squeeze a bit more money out of the world bank. The main important thing, Most people don't look at that balance. The main thing the world Bank does that really improves the human condition.
Speaker 1 Is a concession finance arm called Ida, international development Association. That is funding primary health care schools, nutrition programs, unbelievable things. It's somewhat depleted nowadays and it requires more money, it requires grant money. You know, the big the general owners of the Europeans, they're under a lot of strain with the money that they need give to Ukraine. The recipient countries have higher interest rates and can no longer add to their debt levels.
Speaker 1 So that's give a definite constraint. So yeah, I you, I we wake up everyday thinking there should be more resources to help the poorest, help them deal with climate, you know, climate adaptation, compared to mitigation is really massively underfunded even the most basic high scale thing like making better seeds for those farmers that are higher productivity until with the temperature and get rid of the pressure to do deforestation by being more productive, even that is ridiculously underfunded. So in the world I'm, we have finite financial resources and, unless the Us Congress completely changes its priorities. There's no trillions of dollars thing out there. We can tune some of the parameters mostly we can spend the money better.
Speaker 1 We can use innovation. So I'm a hopeful person. I'm hopeful about child to death, child malnutrition, climate change. But you know, I try to bring a numeric framework where I don't see some trillions of dollars fund available. You, are people willing to increase their taxes, even the the Bill, you know, wasn't able to put say corporate profit taxes back to where it had been and you know.
Speaker 1 So it's a challenge. We are going to have to solve climate and health problems in clever ways, we will not be able to brute force them.
Speaker 0 Thank you for that. We are fast out of time, but I wanna just ask you 1 final question. You you said you're a hopeful person it. And and I will say you're more hopeful than some of the other business and world leaders, I think we've been hearing from this week, which is refreshing in its own way. I wonder what is your then call to action?
Speaker 0 I know you have a a portfolio of interest, but for those who are specifically interested in climate. What's your message to people who say, well, how can I help? I get these reader emails all day. What can I do? What do you say to people like that?
Speaker 1 Well, there's a lot of things you can do in terms of your own buying? Behavior, whether it's buying offsets, whether the food you buy, the electric car, the heating in your house, Those early demand signals where somebody pays a green premium, create volume and drive innovation and competition and get us to the only point that is scalable. Out into the world at large. So consumers really do matter a lot. Their political voice hit their Democrat or Republican, you know Republicans for climate change action are gold, you, that's got to be a number that somehow We managed to increase over time.
Speaker 1 Your voice is an employee in your company whose know buying cement, buying steel, buying electricity, you know, in increasingly legitimate actual ways of doing you those things so that you can have a lower emission footprint. And so there's tons of ways to get involved in this. It's been amazing you, in schools where we've actually had people who go and learn the steel industry, which you know, the best and the brightest, We're not thinking about that. But the the increase in talent that's driving this wave of innovation. That's a key reason why I'm hopeful.
Speaker 0