How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Bill Gates presents a technocratic approach to dealing with climate change. His basic supposition is that we need to get to zero carbon emissions while at the same time increasing net energy use around the world. The primary tool used is a reduction of the green premium. The carbon-free and lower carbon approaches should be equal or cheaper than the high-carbon approaches. He proposes a large selection of different approaches that should start out generally. The government should play a role in regulation and encouragement. However, we need to be careful to not be too proscriptive. The government should encourage specific desired results rather than the specific means to get there. Research should also be encouraged in both the government and private sectors.

His solutions are well thought out. My concern are the basic propositions. Is zero-carbon an appropriate goal? Is that too much or not enough? Perhaps we are so far gone that we need to rapidly scale back the greenhouse gasses. Or maybe we are approaching a cooling and we really need to have a controlled increase in greenhouse gasses. A change of a few degrees temperature could be a very significant. However, it could be harmful or beneficial. We just don't have the ability to fully model everything.  A long term target needs to be easily adjustable.

The bigger concern is the assumption that we need to keep energy consumption to maintain a high standard of living. The general focus of his approach is on "greener" energy and "scrubbing carbon." What about the energy that causes great inefficiencies and reduces are quality of life? In the transport sector, a huge amount of energy is spent just transporting the vehicles. A person is nearly a rounding error in the overall weight of a car. What if we focussed on smaller, lighter vehicles. (More efficient bicycles?) Land use and urban design causes huge wastes. Many regulations force excessive energy use in the urban layouts. A person may spend all their time in 1000 square feet of living space, yet they have a 2000 square foot house on 10000 square feet of land. They need to spend extra energy to maintain the yard and living space. They need to travel greater distances to other destinations because all their neighbors have large yards. The energy consumption requires them to spend more time and more money - just to be able to consume more energy that they do not want. 

Urban development has also had a disproportionate impact on local climatic conditions. The urban heat island can make temperatures a few degrees warmer in cities. Should we do more to combat this?

The Covid pandemic has also shown that many in-person activities can take place fine over video conference. (There do still remain many things that are better done at a distance.) 

Continued focus on research should definitely come into play. However, before enacting vast policy changes, we need to make sure the goal is really the right one.