The key ideas

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Bill Gates, 2021

Every year the world puts out about 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases, and we need to get to zero. Bill Gates takes on the problem like an engineer: he splits it into five areas, works out what a clean replacement costs, and shows what still has to be invented. The book's main tool is the Green Premium, a way to check any climate headline against the numbers.

Who it is for

For anyone who feels uneasy about climate news and wants to know which solutions actually work at the scale of the whole planet, and which ones just make a lot of noise.

There are two numbers you need to know about climate change. The first is 51 billion. The other is zero.

What the book is about

Gates opens the book with two numbers he says you need to know about climate change. The first is 51 billion. The other is zero.

Every year the world adds about 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, counted in carbon dioxide equivalent. To stop the warming, the author argues, that flow has to come down to zero, ideally by 2050.

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, looks at climate the way an engineer looks at a huge problem: take a big number → break it into parts → work out what a clean replacement costs → see what still needs to be invented. He calls himself an imperfect messenger: he has big houses and flies in private planes, and he admits it. Keep one more thing in mind: Gates invests in climate technologies, so some of his conclusions reflect the view of an investor with a stake in the outcome.

Still to come: a bathtub that fills up even from a thin trickle, an awkward question about cement, and one idea the author offers as a lens for every climate headline.

Idea 1. Why zero, and not just "less"

It seems logical: cut emissions in half, and the problem gets half as big. Gates explains why it does not work that way. Carbon dioxide does not leave the air within a year. According to the figures the author cites, about a fifth of the carbon dioxide we emit today will still be in the atmosphere ten thousand years from now.

Hence his image: the climate is like a bathtub with water running into it. If you only turn the tap down, the tub still fills up, just later. Status: this is the author's image to aid understanding, not a climate model.

While Gates was finishing the book, the pandemic struck. In 2020 people sharply cut back on driving and flying, and emissions fell by about 5%, according to the estimate the author cites. A huge price for a small drop. For Gates, this makes the case: you cannot get to zero simply by driving and flying less. We will have to change how almost everything is done.

A Livria analogy: if your credit card debt grows every month, spending a little less on the card does not mean you have paid it off. As long as the debt keeps coming in, it keeps piling up.

For Gates, the goal of zero follows from accumulation: as long as emissions are above zero, the stock of gas in the atmosphere grows. So, in his view, the main question is this: how do we do familiar things with no emissions at all?

Read in Livria

About the author

Bill Gates is a co-founder of Microsoft and of the Gates Foundation. He founded Breakthrough Energy, an investment group that puts money into climate technologies, and TerraPower, a company that develops nuclear reactors.

All books by this author: Bill Gates

Terms from the book

  • Methane
  • Carbon dioxide equivalent: A way to convert different greenhouse gases, such as methane, into one unit, based on how strongly each of them warms the planet.
  • Green Premium: Gates's term for the difference in price between a familiar product that causes emissions and its clean replacement. It is the author's own tool, not an official economic measure.
  • Jet fuel: Fuel for airplanes, mostly aviation kerosene. Clean alternatives, such as biofuels or synthetic fuels, still cost noticeably more.
  • Limestone: The rock that cement is made from. When heated strongly, it breaks down into lime and carbon dioxide.
  • Kilowatt: A unit of power, one thousand watts. In Gates's example, it is roughly what one house needs.
  • Gigawatt: A unit of power, one billion watts, or a million kilowatts. In Gates's example, it is roughly what a midsize city needs.
  • Intermittency: A property of solar and wind power: how much they produce depends on the time of day, the season and the weather, not on when the energy is needed.
  • TerraPower: An American company Gates founded in 2006. It develops next-generation nuclear reactors.
  • Carbon price: A charge on carbon dioxide emissions, such as a tax, that builds the harm from emissions into the cost and makes dirty options more expensive than clean ones.
  • Heat pump: A device that uses electricity to move heat from outside into a house, or the other way round. Gates gives it as an example of a clean replacement for heating.
  • Plant-based meat: Food made from plant protein that looks and tastes like meat. Gates gives it as a way to cut emissions from livestock.

All terms

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