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Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
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This is a very good read. I have seen the media trying to categorize this write up as Gates saying climate change advocates are wrong and it isn't as big of a deal as its made out to be. In fact, he isn't advocating for a decline in our fight against climate change as much as ensuring that the wealthy countries continue to focus on innovation and net-zero, while ensuring that the health of the poorest countries are improved.
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I’m not saying we should ignore temperature-related deaths because diseases are a bigger problem. In fact, temperature-related deaths are one of the reasons why cheap clean energy is so important—it will make heating and air conditioning more affordable everywhere.
What I am saying is that we should deal with disease and extreme weather in proportion to the suffering they cause, and that we should go after the underlying conditions that leave people vulnerable to them. While we need to limit the number of extremely hot and cold days, we also need to make sure that fewer people live in poverty and poor health so that extreme weather isn’t such a threat to them.
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The focus needs to be on prosperity through green innovation, with clear goals on what innovations give the best return to help the prosperity of the poorest of us. The goal is to get the green premium to zero so that we continue to reduce emissions. How positive the transition the move to electric vehicles have been, the positive of green energy being priced on par or cheaper than fossil fuels and how our emissions projections today are lower than they were 20 years ago due to these forces and innovations.
But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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For example, a few years ago, the government of one low-income country set out to cut emissions by banning synthetic fertilizers. Farmers’ yields plummeted, there was much less food available, and prices skyrocketed. The country was hit by a crisis because the government valued reducing emissions above other important things.
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It really leads to the fact that encouraging prosperity in developing countries should not be secondary to the fight against climate change, but work alongside it. We have a duty as a developed country to focus on the innovations and reducing our own emissions drastically, to allow developing countries the leeway to increase their emissions temporarily as a way to increase their prosperity, while we continue to focus on ways to eliminate emissions and pass those innovations on.