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BOOK REVIEW
Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: Solutions We Have
and the Breakthroughs We Need
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2021) 257 pp., ISBN: 978-0735280441
Mark Maslin
1
#Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
When one of the richest men in the world writes a book,
people usually take notice. When it is Bill Gates a leader
of the tech revolution and it is about climate change, then
it becomes a phenomenon. So why has Bill Gates become
passionate about climate change and now sees it as the
greatest threat to humanity? It all starts with his work with
his wife Melinda at the Gates Foundation which was orig-
inally focused on global health, development and US ed-
ucation. Two important facts emerged from the funded
work of the Gates Foundation. First was that global health
and development were being held back by a lack of access
to affordable energy: 860 million people still have no
access to electricity—which raises the question how to
produce this electricity. Second was that all the improve-
ments in global health could be wiped out by climate
change—which will increase both food and water insecu-
rity for billions of people. So, Bill Gates went on a jour-
ney of discovery and like all super-nerds wanted to find
the most efficient technological solutions to the climate
crisis.
It is important to remember that this book is not just rhe-
toric: Bill Gates is putting his money where his mouth is, both
through his Foundation and the company he founded,
Microsoft. For the great monolithic global corporation,
Microsoft is following his lead and taking climate change
seriously. In 2020, the company announced the ambitious
target to go carbon negative by 2030. Even more ambitiously,
it has pledged to remove all the carbon pollution from the
atmosphere that they and their supply chain have emitted since
the founding of the company in 1975 by 2050. But here is the
issue; their current plan to reach these targets is to reduce their
emissions as much as possible, but then to discount the rest of
their emissions by using carbon offsets or credits. Basically,
Microsoft will pay others to use renewable electricity, plant
trees or biofuels, restore nature or capture carbon dioxide di-
rectly from power stations or the atmosphere and dump it deep
in the Earth. Many NGO and academics are highly critical of
carbon offsets as it does not solve the fundamental issue of
producing the emissions in the first place and allows compa-
nies to buy their way out of their environmental
responsibilities.
1
Bill Gates’sbook,How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,clear-
ly follows the zeitgeist and is based on the fundamental prin-
ciple that the world must get to net zero carbon emission by
2050 or earlier if possible. In fact, there is a whole chapter call
“Why Zero”. This principle needs some unpacking. Net zero
carbon emissions means that there will be no increase in at-
mospheric carbon dioxide by 2050—and if there are any emis-
sions, these must be balanced by carbon dioxide being sucked
out of the atmosphere either by technology or by planting vast
forests, hence the term ‘net’. What Bill Gates glosses over is
that even if we reach net zero carbon by 2050, the science
clearly shows we must have negative emissions for the rest
of the century if we are to have any hope of keeping global
temperatures below the 2 °C limit set by world leaders in Paris
in 2015. To try to make the net zero carbon target understand-
able, Bill Gates refers to the current 51 billion tons of carbon
emitted per year as a way of illustrating all the things we need
to do to reduce this huge number and eventually hit zero.
Chapter 4 addresses 27% of the 51 billion tons and is about
our production and use of electricity: it examines how we can
decarbonise electricity production and accelerate the uptake of
renewables. Chapter 5 covers 31% and mainly focuses on the
production of concrete which if it were a country it would the
6th largest emitter in the world. Chapter 6 represents 19% and
concerns itself with agriculture and deforestation: it explores
how we can produce food more efficiently, with less environ-
mental destruction and greenhouse gas emissions. Chapter 7
analyses how we transport ourselves and our goods around the
world which makes up 16% of the total tons of carbon
1
https://trove-research.com/research-and-insight/the-global-voluntary-car-
bon-market-dealing-with-the-problem-of-historic-credits-dec-2020/.
Society
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-021-00581-z
emitted: it looks at ways of removing fossil fuels from vehi-
cles, ships and aircraft—though the latter two only get two
pages in the book because they are so difficult. Finally, chap-
ter 8 analyses the remaining 7%, looking at how we heat and
cool our buildings—for example, how we will need to shift
from natural gas to electricity for heating our homes. He ac-
knowledges that the effort to make all of these changes will be
hard and in each chapter the book presents some of the avail-
able technological solutions—with an occasional suggestion
that we should do less of those things which create the most
carbon emissions.
The book comes at the right time as there are encouraging
signs for the first time in over a decade. In June 2019, the UK
parliament amended the 2008 Climate Change Act to requir-
ing the government to reduce the UK’s emissions of green-
house gases to net zero by 2050. In the midst of the pandemic,
in April 2021, the UK announced an interim reduction target
of 78% in carbon emissions by 2035—15 years earlier than
previously planned. In addition, the European Commission
announced that the EU would reduce its greenhouse gas emis-
sions by at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030, instead of the
40% cut agreed 6 years ago. This is a major step towards the
EU’s overarching pledge of carbon neutrality by 2050. In
September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced via video-
link to the UN General Assembly in New York that China
would aim to reach peak emissions before 2030, followed by a
long-term target to become carbon neutral by 2060. China is
the world’s largest carbon emitter, accountable for around
28% of global emissions, and up to now has not committed
to a long-term emissions goal.
2
In 2021, the USA is the second largest producer of around
15% of global emissions. After the Trump dispensation,
President Biden has re-engaged the USA in the Paris
Agreement and has become a strong advocate of collective
international action to deal with climate change. In 2021, the
USA announced a target cut of50% of its carbonemissions by
2030 and pledged to reach net carbon zero by 2050. Biden has
also reinstated the environmental regulations removed by
Trump, put in major policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions
and greatly increased federal funding for renewable energy
and the US green economy. It is clear in the second half of
Bill Gates’s book that he is addressing the US audience, as we
have a whole chapter dedicated to showing why government
matter. A gentle counter or push back against the neoliberal
agenda of the last 40 years. He uses positive examples of how
governments have made environmental policies that have
saved lives such as the UK Clean Air Act after the killer smog
of the 1950s. He stops short of showing how states influence
the aspirations of civil society through the rule of law and the
development of policy. But he does show how they can use
incentives, subsidies, taxation and regulation to help coun-
tries, particularly the USA, go carbon neutral. What many
people do not realise is that governmental power and policy
are the major drivers of innovation, through investment in
university research, funding industrial R&D and driving de-
mand through incentives.
The book finishes with a disappointing chapter on what
individuals can do—which is not very inspiring. It says
all the right things—talk about climate change, engage
with your local politician, use your consumer power to
buy renewable energy and sustainable goods, buy an elec-
tric car and try a plant-based burger (his way of suggest-
ing we all need to go vegetarian or vegan!). These are
covered in just 4 pages—like people are an afterthought
to a billionaire. Admittedly, individual actions will only
make a small contribution to the overall carbon reductions
needed, but they are extremely important as they send a
strong message to both government and corporations that
citizens want and support major changes. Individual ac-
tion has had an impact. The School Climate Strikes and
the Extinction Rebellion protests have brought together
diverse groups of people across the world, all wanting
governments to start taking the protection of our planet
seriously. And change is starting to happen, with over
1400 local governments and over 35 countries having de-
clared that we are in a climate emergency. But Bill
Gates’s book is very bland when it comes to politics
and there is no mention of public agitation or protests
about saving our planet.
Bill Gates includes an afterword on COVID-19 and how he
sees it as a major setback for the climate change and global
health agenda. While the shutdown of many sectors of the
economy has had environmental benefits in terms of carbon
emissions and biodiversity loss, few would argue that the
socio-economic cost can be justified. But Bill Gates misses
the key point that the global lockdown had only a minimal
effect on our carbon emissions. A recent study suggests a drop
of just 7% in carbon emissions occurred in 2020.
3
So, ceasing
almost all flying and car journeys has a small impact on our
total greenhouse gas pollution. In fact, 2020 global carbon
emissions were the same as 2006. This is because there has
been very little change to energy production and agriculture
during the pandemic—both major emitters of greenhouse gas-
es. In many ways, this point re-enforces the key chapters of the
book that show that energy production, building and
manufacturing and agriculture are the greatest emitters of
greenhouse gases—none of which changed much during the
pandemic.
2
Mark A. Maslin “The road from Rio to Glasgow: A short history of the
climate change negotiations”, Scottish Geographical Journal, 136:1-4, 5-12,
DOI:10.1080/14702541.2020.1853873.
3
Le Quéré, C., Jackson,R.B., Jones, M.W. et al. Temporary reduction in daily
global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement. Nat. Clim.
Chang. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x.
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In the afterword, Bill Gates also seems to have missed that
the pandemic has change many people’s views of and rela-
tionship with government and their agencies?.
4
In response to
the COVID-19 crisis, normal governance has been replaced
by strong government coordination based on achieving the
common good for everyone by managing the rate of new
infectionsthrough social isolation measures in this severe pan-
demic, as well as keeping people supplied with food, medica-
tion and vaccines. This switch in governance model has not
been smooth or quick enough in some countries, with a de-
layed response in the UK and libertarian resistance in USA
and Brazil, which are being counted in bodies.
5
Recognition
of the weakness of some government responses to address the
pandemic demonstrates that the majority of people look to
governments to address this crisis and now are looking to
governments to deal with the bigger climate change crisis.
The book is limited in several important and revealing
ways as it does not address the wider environmental and social
issues which make dealing with climate change so hard.
6
For
example, global and national structural inequality and the con-
centration of power and wealth are not mentioned. Oxfam
have calculated that the 26 richest people in the world (includ-
ing Bill Gates) currently own the same amount of wealth as
those 3.8 billion poorest people collectively.
7
When it comes
to carbon emissions, 50% of which are directly related to
lifestyle are emitted by the richest 10% of people in the world.
The poorest 50% of our global society emit just 10% of the
pollution
7
. The book also does not acknowledge the other
major environmental disasters that are also occurring such as
pollution, deforestation, habitat destruction and extinctions.
All of these, like climate change, are caused by our fixation
on consumption and the drive by companies such as Microsoft
to try and sell us more stuff.
Bill Gates’s book is a technophile dream of how to make a
better world without a social revolution. Charles C. Mann in
his book ‘The Wizard and the Prophet
8
’uses the story of two
ground-breaking American scientists, William Vogt and
Norman Borlaug, to illustrate the fundamentally opposing
views of the world and our environmental crisis. Norman
Borlaug, the Wizard, very much like Bill Gates, regarded
technology, along with the constant ability of humans to in-
novate, as a panacea that will cure every ill, whereas William
Vogt envisages the future of this planet, as a much darker and
more dysfunctional, in which humans have destroyed the en-
vironment and superheated the climate. In many ways, when I
read Bill Gates’s book, it felt like all we need to do is trust in
technology and our Star Trek-style future will be assured,
whereas many non-billionaires see Blade Runner as the more
likely future. I think it is this lack of genuine confrontation
with the real human issues in the book that makes it much less
powerful than it could have been.
Bill Gates’s book is a well-written, clear, factual book
which outlines many technological solutions to the use of
fossil fuels and proposes new technology required to remove
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But what his book con-
spicuously does not do is question the underlying issue of
consumer capitalism and its environmental impact. What the
book advocates is using the current systems of governance
and tweaking them so that they encourage society to
decarbonise. It is a book aimed at an American audience to
show the scale of the problem but, more fundamentally, to
reassure them, there are solutions existing or coming soon
which will help avoid the worst of climate change. And yet,
this is at odds with the opening and central message of the
book, which is we have to go from emitting 51 million tons of
carbon emissions per year to zero in less than 30 years. This
needs a revolution in our production of energy and food, and
in our transport systems, and our built environment. It also
needs us to consume less of the planet’s valuable and finite
resources. We need to radically change our excessive
consumption—because we cannot continue as we are, and
we certainly cannot in 2050 have 10 billion people with the
same consumption habits of an average person in the devel-
oped world today. It is the acceptance of the need for this
radical change that is so essential if we are to tackle climate
change but which is missing from Bill Gates’sbook.
Publisher’sNote Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdic-
tional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Mark Maslin is Professor of Earth System Science at University College
London and author of Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction
(Oxford, 2021) and How to Save Our Planet: The Facts (Penguin,
2021) m.maslin@ucl.ac.uk
4
Jones, P.J.S. and M. Maslin “Governance of the Global Environmental
Crisis Post-COVID-19”International Affairs Forum The Post-Pandemic
World (July) Edition https://www.ia-forum.org/Files/URLMDI.pdf (2020).
5
Roser, M, Ritchie H., Ortiz-Ospina, E and Hasell J. (2020) https://
ourworldindata.org/coronavirus UN (2020) News. https://news.un.org/en/sto-
ry/2020/03/1059752.
6
Simon L. Lewis and Mark Maslin (2018) The Human Planet: How we
caused the Anthropocene, (Pelican).
7
Oxfam, Policy Paper –“Confronting Carbon Inequality: Putting climate
justice at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery”: https://
oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621052/mb-
confronting-carbon-inequality-210920-en.pdf (2020)
8
Charles C Mann The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Groundbreaking
Scientists and Their Conflicting Visions of the Future of Our Planet, Picador
608pp (2018)
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