ENB Pub Note: The following is an outstanding article from Doug Sheridan on LinkedIn.
The only real solution is to throw the UN out of the US and get the US out of the UN. We also need to get legislation in place, as the lawfare against companies bringing low-cost energy to the consumers will continue until their funding dries up. The sad part is that it just gets passed on to the consumers.
The FT writes, Bill Gates has called for the United Nations to make a “major strategic pivot” from a “doomsday view” of climate goals towards funding vaccines and alleviating poverty.
Gates defended the trade-off between tackling the rise in the global temperature versus the distribution of medicines in poor countries, saying it was a pragmatic stance following dramatic cuts in aid by wealthy countries.
“If you said to me, Hey, what about 0.1 degrees versus malaria eradication?’ let the temperature go up 0.1 degrees to get rid of malaria. People don’t understand the suffering that exists today,” he told reporters.
He noted that aid budget cuts meant malaria deaths of more than 500,000 last year would rise this year. He said the Gavi vaccine-buying fund supported by the Gates Foundation would have 25% less money for the next five years, despite the Foundation making a $1.6bn funding pledge earlier this year.
In an open letter ahead of the UN COP30 Brazil climate summit in Brazil next month, which he will not attend, Gates said he did not believe the funds designated for climate were being spent on “the right things'” and that temperature goals alone were not the best metric for human welfare.
Although climate change would have serious consequences and every fraction of warming mattered, it would not lead to humanity’s demise, he said, advocating for more spending on crop resilience and healthcare. “I know that some climate advocates will disagree with me,” he wrote.
Despite his conclusion there was “not any chance” that global warming would be kept to within 2C since pre-industrial times but “probably be less than 3C” he argued that innovation would ensure it “will not be the end of civilisation.”
Rich countries would adapt to warmer temperatures, he predicted. Gov’t would invest in cooling centres and extreme weather warning systems, he said, as well as rebuilding using smarter fire resistant materials and better land management to keep blazes from spreading, and defences to withstand heavy winds and rain. European countries would “have to buy a bunch of air conditioning”.
Our Take 1: In 2015, Gates was right when he said the cost to fix climate change with current technologies was “beyond astronomical.”
Our Take 2: Gates then flip-flopped in 2021 to being wrong when he argued in his book How to Avoid A Climate Disaster for the shunning of natural gas as a transition fuel to replace coal, providing support for the misguided move to ineffective wind and solar to hit Net Zero by 2050.
Our Take 3: Now Gates has flip-flopped again—this time back on the sensible side of the climate change discussion—correctly arguing that adaptation to climate change should now be the focus of the UN and the world’s nations.
Our Take 4: Gates is back in the land of climate change sanity. Let’s hope he’s not the last to return… and that he has the courage to stick to it going forward.
Be the first to comment