Everyone knows Bill Gates is not an expert in this subject so he's had to explain how he got involved and basically taught himself all about it. He's very analytical and reduces everything to its effect on the bottom line of total emissions and also the cost for the idea to be adopted. It's quite revealing how much is down to governments and industry as well as just individuals. There's not much science in this book it's more of a pointer to where the solutions are likely to come from and some of the problems stopping them. Quite a few inventions for example are still needed.

A year or so ago I read The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, which laid out in often horrific details, the kinds of things that would happen to the planet if we didn’t change our ways. Bill Gates goes for the much more practical, “So what can we do about it now?” approach. This book is basically his plan to cut our carbon emissions from 51 billion tonnes to zero by 2050. That’s it in a nutshell. If we don’t then, like a bath, with even just a slow dripping tap, we’ll end up overflowing and facing some of the consequences that Wallace-Wells laid out in his earlier work. To do this, in this enormously readable book, Gates takes us through where the emissions come from, and examines ways to work through each of those sectors, which he breaks down into making things, plugging in, growing things, getting around and keeping warm and cool. He tackles each in turn, although he notes that we spend a lot of time thinking about “getting around” – aka transport – which accounts for 16% of net emissions, but not so much on making steel and concrete. The food industry also gets a good look-in. Gates is putting his money where his mouth is. Throughout the book he talks about the various companies he’s invested in. This could sound a bit, “Aren’t I clever?” but it doesn’t. He’s just being practical. It comes from the work he and his wife Melinda have carried out through their Gates Foundation in doing very practical things like fighting malaria. So he’s constantly referring to people he’s met, and businesses he’s keenly following. And throughout, he is very pragmatic. Only a few of us are willing – or even able – to pay a “Green Premium” for some of life’s essentials. He readily acknowledges that the lower the income you are in, the bigger a proportion of your overall costs something like transport will be. So paying even a small premium is simply not affordable. He’s also very aware that the big growth in greenhouse gases is likely to come from developing parts of the world where billions are coming to expect the same kinds of middle-class lifestyles that Americans and Europeans have experienced. So, what are the solutions? Well, this isn’t really a list of things that you or I can do directly – assuming neither of us is a world leader. There are some of those things, but this is more about policy as well as corporate and governmental support and investment. When we buy the cheapest concrete or steel, there is no carbon-cost attached to it. There’s no incentive to use the greener materials. And where there are financial incentives, they don’t necessarily help. The energy industry is rife with them, but they protect the enormously cheap fossil fuel industry. On the other hand, laws might make it ridiculously hard to build things like windfarms (a particular problem, seemingly, in the US). There are things which make you raise your eyebrows a bit. Gates doesn’t believe that just planting lots of trees will fix things. He’s got nothing against trees but I think sees them as a too simplistic solution that will require ongoing care to payback their investment over centuries. He is a big proponent of nuclear fuel, pointing out that while wind and solar energy are fantastic, they don’t provide consistent power. And even though at heart, Gates is a technologist through and through, he doesn’t see battery technology meaningfully moving on, which causes difficulties if you need to store vast amounts of power to even out supply on windless or cloudy days. Some will look at Gates, flying around in his private jet and wonder if he really practices what he preaches? He acknowledges his own shortcomings, but I think this book shows that he is indeed putting his money where his mouth is. Getting to net zero will not be easy, as he repeats throughout, but it’s achievable and he’s laid out a plan to get us there.

It is an excellent read. Bill Gates describes in detail what we need to do to get to 0. Recommended for Microsoft fans enjoy!

A fascinating book that consolidates facts relating to many of the areas affecting climate change. I found it to be a very readable and informative book. I thought it had a positive skew as Gates talks about what we are doing, as well as what we need to address further. There is a bit of repetition across chapters but that’s understandable when so many issues are interrelated. The main thing that I take away from this fact-based book is that we can all do something, however small, to help with climate change. New solutions are being developed all the time and we need to support these developments in an effort to eliminate greenhouse gases.

I've been following Bill Gates philanthropic work for some time now and he has already helped immensely in poorer countries like India, Nigeria, Bangladesh etc to improve their health and education. His plans are always ambitious and I can't wait to see how he plans to tackle the biggest threat we've ever faced; climate destruction.