The innovations we need to avoid a climate disaster | Bill Gates

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

The single most important thing for avoiding a climate disaster is cutting carbon pollution from the current 51 billion tons per year to zero, says philanthropist and technologist Bill Gates. Introducing the concept of the “green premium” -- the higher price of zero-emission products like electric cars, artificial meat or sustainable aviation fuel -- Gates identifies the breakthroughs and investments we need to reduce the cost of clean tech, decarbonize the economy and create a pathway to a clean and prosperous future for all. (This virtual conversation, hosted by TED global curator Bruno Giussani, was recorded in March 2021.)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. On today's show, the philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in conversation with Ted's global curator Bruno Jasani about his new book, which focuses on ambitious changes for the world to avoid climate disaster.
0:18.3	He talks through something called the green premium, lays out innovations we need to
0:21.6	invest in, and shares why younger generations are the key to getting to net zero emissions. And also,
0:27.4	how his love for burgers is changing. This conversation is from March 2021 and part of Countdown,
0:33.7	Ted's global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis.
0:40.2	Get involved at countdown. ted.com.
0:49.5	Bill Gates calls himself an imperfect messenger on climate because of his high carbon footprint and the lifestyle.
0:51.2	However, he has just made a major contribution to our thinking about confronting climate
0:56.4	change via a book, a book about decarbonizing our economy and society.
1:02.4	It's an optimistic can-do kind of book with a strong focus on technological solutions.
1:08.6	He discusses the things we have, such as wind and solar power,
1:12.9	the things we need to develop, such as carbon-free cement or carbon-free steel and long-term energy
1:20.0	storage. And it talks about the economics of it all, introducing the concept of green premium.
1:27.3	The gist of the book, and really I'm simplifying here a lot, introducing the concept of green premium. The gist of the book, and really I'm simplifying
1:29.7	here a lot, is that fighting climate change is going to be hard, but it's possible. We can do it.
1:37.1	There is a pathway to a clean and prosperous future for all. So we want to unpack some of that
1:43.6	with the author of the book. Bill Gates,
1:45.8	welcome back to Ted. Thank you. Bill, I would like to start where you start from the title of the
1:51.8	book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, which of course presumes that you're heading towards a
1:57.0	climate disaster if we don't act differently. So what is the single most important thing we must do to avoid a climate disaster?
2:05.1	Well, the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere, particularly CO2, stay there for thousands
2:10.8	of years.
	...

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