PDF Summary:How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, by Bill Gates

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is a New York Times best-selling, no-nonsense, apolitical discussion of climate change. Bill Gates's decades of philanthropy inform his writing on the urgent need to curb emissions while still encouraging development. Complementing his empathetic approach to reducing carbon emissions, he uses his experience in the technology industry to highlight the most practical technology-based strategies for reducing global carbon emissions with a straightforward assessment of their challenges and limitations.

While Gates discusses several promising emergent sources of green energy throughout the book, he also stresses the need to reduce emissions quickly. Therefore, this guide focuses on the technologies and strategies he discusses that are most feasible today. For clarity, we’ve broken Gates’s ideas into three categories: the climate problem, its causes, and Gates’s proposed strategies for curbing emissions. This guide supplements Gates’s discussion with commentary on scientific principles, timely examples of the impacts of climate change, and additional data and statistics.

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Unfortunately, updating the US electrical grid is expensive and complicated. A new grid could cost more than two trillion dollars. Perhaps more problematically, such a project promises to be politically controversial due to local and state legislators’ control over their region's electrical systems. For instance, politicians may oppose grid updates to save their constituents’ money. Therefore, the electrical grid itself is likely to be a limiting factor in the US’s ability to run on clean electricity.

Solar Power

Solar is one of the most widely used and growing renewable electricity sources. Solar has obvious appeal in that the sun is an unlimited source of energy, and solar panels can be scaled up to industrial size and down to individual homes and businesses or even tiny cells that can charge a single device. However, Gates notes that solar also has significant limitations, including:

Efficiency. Gates explains that at current efficiency levels, solar takes up between five and 50 times more space than fossil fuels. This limitation is especially significant considering that land devoted to solar energy production won’t be available for other uses like farming and housing.

(Shortform note: One way to address solar’s space-efficiency problem is to change where we put solar panels. The United States only puts 2.5% of large-scale solar projects in urban areas. The rest are in deserts, cropland, grassland, and forests, where they disrupt local ecosystems and preclude other land uses. A promising alternative is to put large solar facilities in existing parking lots where they can generate power near where it’s needed, save space, and provide shade in areas that can otherwise be extremely hot.)

Discontinuous Availability. Gates notes that one of the biggest challenges in carbon-less electricity generation is the public’s expectation that electricity will be reliably available 24/7. Unlike fossil fuels that generate energy day or night, solar panels only produce electricity when the sun is shining, meaning less power is available at night, during long or especially heavy storms, and during winter.

The challenges of discontinuous solar availability add to the complexity of a large-scale switch to solar. For example, Gates notes that it isn’t feasible or economical to use existing battery technology to store the huge amounts of energy cities would need during especially dark periods. Additionally, the uneven distribution of sunlight throughout the year creates the problematic question of whether to invest in enough solar panels for the winter (in which case you’d have too much power during the summer) or summer (in which case you wouldn’t have enough power in the winter).

(Shortform note: Space-based solar power is a futuristic yet potentially viable option for addressing solar intermittency issues. Since sunlight is constant in space, scientists from the US, UK, China, and Japan, among others, are working on ways to have satellites in outer space collect solar energy and beam it wirelessly back to Earth. Some think this technology might be viable within the next decade.)

Technology coupled with strategic pricing can help address the challenges of discontinuity. For example, “smart homes” could be outfitted to use electricity to charge electric vehicles, heat water, and perform other tasks during off-peak hours, such as late at night. Additionally, Gates notes that utility companies could start charging more for electricity during peak hours to create an incentive for people to restructure their energy use based on availability.

(Shortform note: Americans collectively waste $130 billion of energy around their homes yearly. Since heating and cooling represent the bulk of residential energy use, smart home technology can be especially helpful in reducing energy waste and lowering heating and cooling bills.)

Wind and Offshore Wind

Wind-generated electricity faces many of the same challenges as solar. Gates notes that windmills take up ten times more space than solar and have similar reliability challenges (the wind doesn’t always blow). Additionally, Gates explains that the lengthy and complex permitting process for installing offshore wind turbines in the United States is a deterrent to widespread adoption.

Windmills and Birds

Opponents of windmills often cite their impact on bird populations. For instance, in October of 2020, President Trump famously claimed that windmills kill “all the birds” during a debate with President Biden. This commonly held misconception is based on fact. Windmills do kill between 140 and 500 thousand birds annually. Still, this number pales in comparison to the one to four billion birds killed by domestic and feral cats and the estimated one billion birds that die from crashing into windows yearly. As a testament to wind power’s benefits, the National Audubon Society “strongly supports wind energy that is sited and operated properly to avoid…impacts on birds,” for example, by avoiding known bird migration routes.

Another challenge facing wind and solar power is that they’re location-specific, whereas fossil fuels can be shipped and used anywhere. Making a significant switch to wind or solar would necessitate a large-scale and coordinated update of electrical grids and power companies so that renewable energy generated in one location could be used in another. However, this would also necessitate crossing state or even national boundaries, adding political and economic complexity to the task. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are easy to transport and our existing infrastructure is set up for their transport and use.

(Shortform note: The transportation of fossil fuels may be relatively easy compared to renewables; however, transporting fossil fuels is a major source of emissions in and of itself. Much of the global shipping industry’s revenue comes from shipping fossil fuels, and fossil fuels also power virtually all large shipping vessels. Problematically, emissions in this sector are growing despite global efforts to reduce atmospheric carbon. Representing the emissions of the global shipping industry as a country would make it the sixth largest emitter in the world!)

Nuclear Energy

While Gates advocates pursuing and improving all of the renewable energy sources discussed above, he notes that our best chance of achieving non-carbon electricity generation is to combine the above options with nuclear power. This would provide many benefits:

• Reliable and consistent electricity generation: Nuclear doesn’t have the discontinuity problems solar and wind face.
• Non-carbon fuel source: Nuclear reactors run on uranium, a non-carbon and relatively abundant fuel source.
• Less material-intensive to build: Nuclear reactors are the second-most materials-efficient type of power plant we can build, bested only marginally by natural gas. Therefore, making the reactor itself emits less carbon dioxide than other energy sources.

Gates recognizes public hesitancy to pursue large-scale nuclear power due to the dangers of radioactive waste, the potential for a nuclear reactor meltdown, and uranium’s role in producing weapons of mass destruction. However, he notes that the idea that nuclear is an unsafe option is flawed. Nuclear power has resulted in fewer deaths per unit of energy produced than coal, oil, biomass, or gas. Additionally, Gates notes that new technology promises to make nuclear meltdowns a near impossibility. Therefore, he explains that reducing the threat of global warming will likely necessitate a more widespread acceptance of nuclear power.

Addressing the Radioactive Waste Problem

While some argue that public perception of the dangers of nuclear waste is overblown, the waste does have to go somewhere. Some radioactive waste can take up to 1 million years to decay to safe levels, making secure long-term storage a critical consideration when running and constructing nuclear power plants. In fact, the timescale of radioactive waste is so long that in 1981 the US Department of Energy enlisted linguists and scientists to help devise a way to warn a civilization 10,000 years in the future about the location of radioactive waste.

Auspiciously, advances in the laser industry could deflect the need to store nuclear waste for tens or hundreds of thousands of years (and the multi-billion dollar price tag that comes with it). Nobel Physics Prize winner professor Gérard Mourou and two laser companies from Lithuania have developed a high-powered laser to “bombard” atoms in nuclear waste with pulses of energy, potentially decreasing the time it takes radioactive material to decay to just hours. While the technology is still in its infancy, researchers suggest it could become commercially viable within 15 years. It may eliminate a major hurdle in increasing nuclear power production and improving the public’s opinion of nuclear power if it does.

Agriculture (19%)

Raising livestock generates most of the emissions in the agriculture category. Animals such as cows, sheep, and goats generate methane in their flatulence, and animal manure (particularly pig manure) generates nitrous oxide. Both of these greenhouse gases have far more warming potential than carbon dioxide. Additionally, when we clear land for livestock the carbon stored in the trees and disturbed soil is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

As people around the world become wealthier, their dietary preferences shift toward consuming more animal products, driving up the carbon footprint of their diet. This trend, combined with global population increases, will substantially increase the demand for animal-based food. As a result, if current trends hold, emissions in this category may increase by two-thirds in the coming decades. While Gates doesn’t expect people to give up meat entirely, he encourages readers to eat fewer animal products to help curb greenhouse gas emissions.

(Shortform note: A 2021 study published in Nature re-estimated greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector and compared emissions from plant-based and animal-based food production and consumption. The data show that food systems emissions actually make up roughly 35% of global emissions, higher than previous estimates and higher than the 19% Gates proposes in the book. Additionally, this study suggests that emissions from animal-based food are nearly double those from plant-based food; 57% and 29%, respectively. These findings add weight to Gates’s suggestion of eating fewer animal products to reduce our carbon footprints.)

Transportation (16%)

Transportation accounts for 16% of emissions worldwide, but Gates explains that it’s the biggest source of emissions in the US, with roughly half of those emissions coming from personal vehicles. Without a large-scale shift to electric cars and carbon-less electricity to charge those cars, we can expect emissions from personal vehicles to increase as car ownership becomes more common globally.

The two most significant barriers to reducing personal transportation emissions with electric cars are the availability of carbon-less electricity (if we use fossil fuels to generate the electricity used to charge the car then we’re just swapping one fossil fuel for another) and the purchase cost of an electric vehicle. However, Gates estimates that the price of an electric car will be similar to the price of a gas-powered car by 2030, and sooner should gas prices increase.

Electric Cars Aren’t Carbon-Free

While electric cars are generally more climate-friendly than gas-powered ones, building them is a materials- and energy-intensive process that still produces carbon emissions and impacts the environment. For instance, producing the batteries in electric cars actually takes more materials and water and releases more carbon dioxide than producing traditional combustion engines. Furthermore, battery materials like cobalt, rare earth metals, and lithium are linked to environmental pollution and human rights concerns.

Another environmental hurdle for electric vehicles is the electricity needed to charge them. Charging electric vehicles with electricity from coal-fired power plants can actually emit more carbon dioxide than fueling an efficient gas-powered car. In contrast, charging an electric car with solar power virtually eliminates running emissions. Therefore, how well an electric vehicle outperforms a traditional model’s emissions will depend on how it’s charged. (The US Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center offers a calculator that compares emissions from different types of vehicles by state based on electricity sources.)

Nearly a third of the remaining global transportation emissions come from large trucks and buses, as well as another 10% from cargo and cruise ships and 10% from airplanes. Unfortunately, these larger vehicles are more difficult to electrify because current battery technology is 35 times heavier than gas and would require vehicles to make frequent recharging stops. The resulting loss of efficiency makes current battery technology impractical for large vehicles. Gates notes that nuclear-powered ships are a carbon-free option and cites advances in alternative fuels as a promising solution for trucks and planes.

(Shortform note: A 2022 report by the Environmental Defense Fund takes a more optimistic view on the future of large electric vehicles. The study found that it will be cheaper to buy and maintain electric freight trucks and buses than those powered by combustion engines by 2027, largely because of advances in battery technology coupled with more affordable prices. Large companies are already switching to electric trucks: Amazon recently purchased 100,000 electric trucks, UPS is purchasing 10,000 electric delivery vehicles, and FedEx aims to be fully battery-powered by 2040. In contrast, the USPS sparked outrage in 2022 when it announced that it would continue to purchase thousands of gas-powered delivery trucks.)

Heating and Cooling (7%)

Heating and cooling technology improves people’s quality of life in moderate temperatures and can be the difference between life and death in extreme temperatures. Gates expects the global demand for air conditioning to triple by 2050 as wealth increases in emerging economies and extreme heat becomes more dangerous. Ironically, the more the planet warms, the more air conditioning people will use, further exacerbating global warming (this is another reason Gates stresses the need for carbon-less electricity).

Efficiency can help curb emissions in the heating and cooling category. Gates estimates that emissions from air conditioners could be reduced by half if people purchased the most efficient models available. Additionally, since most furnaces and water heaters currently run on fossil fuels, Gates suggests switching to electric heat pumps as another way to increase efficiency and reduce emissions. However, since a new furnace or water heater is an expensive and infrequent purchase, he notes that this large-scale switch is likely to take a long time without compelling consumer incentives.

Achieving Cooler Living Spaces

The International Energy Agency calls the rising global demand for air conditioning one of the most critical blind spots in today’s energy debate. Without major innovations in cooling technology, even if consumers purchased the most efficient air conditioners on the market, as Gates suggests, air conditioning emissions alone could raise the global temperature by half a degree Celsius by 2100.

Technology companies worldwide are working on cooling technology innovations in the hopes of curbing air conditioning emissions. But many cities are also taking steps to keep temperatures liveable even for those without access to air conditioning by incorporating more plants into urban spaces. While it takes a considerable amount of vegetation to accomplish, planting green roofs and green corridors among buildings can reduce urban temperatures by up to 5 degrees Celsius without any additional air conditioning!

The Roles of Governments, Private Entities, and Individuals in Curbing Carbon Emissions

We’ve discussed Gates’s ideas about why carbon dioxide emissions are problematic, where they come from, and the challenges and opportunities we face in addressing them. Next, we’ll cover Gates’s discussion of the roles governments, private entities, and individuals must play if we hope to eliminate carbon emissions by 2050.

National Government

According to Gates, the most meaningful reductions in carbon emissions will start at the highest levels of government because they can create and enforce the large-scale policies needed to achieve significant carbon reduction quickly. However, Gates recognizes that enacting change at the highest levels of government is challenging for many reasons, including:

Entrenched Systems: Our current systems are set up for fossil fuels. A switch to carbon-less energy would necessitate modifications at every level of government, from international trade agreements and economic policies to physical infrastructure (including a new national power grid) and building codes, down to outfitting individual homes for renewable energy sources.

(Shortform note: As Gates explains, fossil fuels have been the default energy system in many highly developed economies for decades. However, the Biden administration has taken steps to dissuade other nations from taking the same path. In 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States would no longer finance “carbon-intensive” overseas energy projects (defining “carbon-intensive” as 250 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour). While some argue that this policy, shared by multiple European countries, is hypocritical, it shows that fossil fuels are no longer so entrenched as to be a “given” when it comes to new energy projects.)

Changing Administrations: Turnover is a significant challenge for climate activism in government because different elected officials and administrations have different agendas, priorities, and methods. Therefore, it can be difficult to enact meaningful climate policy and see it through before terms run out or political priorities change.

(Shortform note: One of the most widely publicized examples of changing climate priorities in recent years is President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2019, and President Biden’s rejoining of the agreement in 2021. The purpose of the agreement is to hold countries accountable for keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by reducing carbon emissions. President Trump withdrew from the agreement on the grounds of prioritizing the economy, while President Biden rejoined, citing the climate as a top priority.)

Lack of Funding: Gates explains that only .02% of the global economy is currently directed toward climate-related research and development. Given the potentially devastating impacts of global warming, Gates suggests that this figure should be much higher.

Note: To Gates, government hesitancy about investing in carbon-less energy is nonsensical. Instead, he explains that governments should be rushing to invest in climate-related technology because any green technology that can outcompete fossil fuels in price and efficiency will be guaranteed a massive international market.

(Shortform note: Gates puts the injustice of climate change front and center in the book, and discrepancies in climate-related spending are a measurable example of this disparity. For example, Ethiopia is on track to spend 5.6% of its GDP adapting to the damaging impacts of climate change every year until 2030, despite only producing 0.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita. For context, 0.2 metric tons is roughly 1.4% as much carbon dioxide as the average American produces (calculated based on 2019 values). Similarly, South Sudan, the second poorest country in the world, will need to spend $376 million (3% of its GDP) on climate-related challenges, despite contributing virtually nothing to the climate problem.)

The Cost of Shifting to Greener Energy Sources: Markets favor fossil fuels because they’re cheap relative to other energy sources. Additionally, governments have historically subsidized fossil fuels to keep prices down instead of pushing the market towards carbon-less alternatives. Gates explains that governments should take an active role in making green energy affordable because once carbon-less energy can match or beat fossil fuel prices, addressing global warming will make financial sense whether individuals, businesses, or countries are committed to reducing emissions or not. For example, governments could:

• Increase the cost of carbon-emitting products to reflect the damage they cause
• Subsidize or create other incentives to help consumers choose greener products
• Enforce new emissions standards for products and companies so that producers have to make lowering emissions while keeping prices affordable a priority to stay in business

(Shortform note: The cost of shifting to greener energy sources is decreasing around the world. According to BloombergNEF, which tracks market transitions to a low-carbon economy, it’s now cheaper to build and run wind and solar power plants for 46% of the world’s population than it is to build new coal or gas-fired power plants. For example, in China, India, and Germany, new solar farms are cheaper than producing energy with coal, and the same is true for wind power in Brazil, the UK, Poland, and Morocco.)

Local Government and Private Business

Local and regional governments and businesses can help curb carbon emissions by factoring them into local standards, regulations, and budgets. For example, public utility companies should invest in renewable energy and subsidize efforts to make carbon-less energy affordable and feasible for their customers. Additionally, Gates notes that as consumers, governments and businesses have more power to shape the market than individuals because of their size. Therefore, they should support green products or companies whenever possible. For example, a local municipality could invest in a fleet of hybrid school buses.

(Shortform note: Involvement from state governments and local businesses is one of the reasons more people are investing in solar panels in the US, where the solar industry has grown 10,000% since 2006, and the cost of solar has decreased by 70% since 2014. Many state governments drive solar prices down by providing state tax credits for solar panels. Additionally, local utilities around the country are making solar more affordable by offering customers rebates on their energy bills or paying their customers a fixed amount per kilowatt-hour their solar system produces.)

Gates recognizes that a large-scale shift away from fossil fuels will benefit the planet but may devastate some families and communities when fossil fuel industries downsize and jobs are lost. Therefore, local governments must be proactive in assessing what a shift toward carbon-less energy will mean for their constituents and make a plan to support them.

Renewable Energy Creates Jobs

Fossil fuels often become political in the context of job loss, with many suggesting a false choice between jobs or the environment. However, according to the Department of Energy’s 2022 US Energy and Employment Report, jobs in the renewable energy industry grew faster than the country’s overall increase of 2.8%. The report notes that in 2021, jobs in electric vehicles increased by over 26%, jobs in solar increased by 5.4%, and jobs in wind increased by 2.9%, with the energy sector growing by 4%.

To Gates’s point, even though the move toward carbon-less energy creates jobs overall, those jobs aren’t equally distributed around the country. For example, although Montana has very high wind power potential, the state only employs 86 people in the industry. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has relatively low solar potential compared to other parts of the country but employs more people in the industry than any state other than California. Finally, Texas has very high potential in both wind and solar but employs relatively few people in either industry, considering its potential for power generation. These discrepancies highlight the role of local leaders and industries in capitalizing on carbon-less energy opportunities.

Individuals

Lifestyle changes such as reducing energy consumption at home, purchasing an electric car, and consuming fewer animal products are valuable because they reduce our carbon footprint and, more importantly, send a message to the market about what consumers want. However, Gates explains that our individual efforts to reduce our emissions have little impact on global warming. Instead, the most important thing individuals can do to reduce carbon emissions is engage in the political process. Gates stresses the importance of voting for elected officials and policies that prioritize the climate, becoming active in local politics, and running for office.

(Shortform note: As Gates explains, access to energy, particularly electricity, is associated with a higher quality of life. However, many of us could stand to use less energy. A 2022 study from Stanford was able to pinpoint just how much energy people need to maximize their health using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as benchmarks. Their results indicate that people need 75 gigajoules per year, and no more, to maximize their quality of life. For context, the average American uses 284 gigajoules per year. Therefore, in addition to Gates’s call to get involved in the political process, many of us could cut back significantly on our energy consumption and carbon footprints with no ill effects.)