How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates;
The New Climate War by Michael E Mann – review
Two eminent voices on the climate crisis present clear
strategies for tackling emissions, deniers and doomsayers
Bob Ward
Sun 14 Feb
2021 07.00 GMT
President Joe
Biden has promised a new era of American leadership on global climate action,
after four years of unscientific denial and misinformation under Donald Trump.
Two important new books by prominent American authors, both written before the
result of the presidential election was known, should help to capitalise on the
new spirit of cautious optimism by laying out bold but well-argued plans for
accelerating action against climate change.
How to
Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
by Bill Gates presents a compelling explanation of how the world can stop
global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions effectively to zero. Gates
and his wife, Melinda, are well known for their foundation’s tremendous work on
improving health and tackling disease around the world, particularly in poor
countries. It is this concern for the most vulnerable people on the planet that
has meant Gates has occasionally appeared equivocal about climate and energy
policies that he thought could undermine the fight against poverty and illness.
However, this book lays out forcefully his understanding that the impact of
climate change poses a far bigger threat to lives and livelihoods in developing
countries – it is thwarting efforts to raise living standards because poor
people, in every country, are the most at risk from droughts, floods and
heatwaves.
Gates rightly emphasises the importance of improving
the resilience of both rich and poor countries to current and future climate
change that cannot now be avoided. But his book leaves no doubt that adapting
to the impact is not a solution on its own – we must also eliminate global
emissions of greenhouse gases.
His
strategy for reaching zero emissions is laid out in a very straightforward way,
using numbers to help guide the reader to the magnitude of the challenge. He
notes that annual emissions of greenhouse gases before the Covid-19 pandemic
were well over 50bn tonnes worldwide, and rising. Getting to zero within the
next few decades will be no mean feat.
The book
breaks down the sources of these emissions into a few broad categories – making
things, plugging in, and getting around – and Gates knows how to frame issues
in terms with which everybody should be able to engage, without dumbing down
the material.
At its
highest level, his strategy is simple: make power generation zero-carbon by
replacing fossil fuels with renewables and nuclear power, and then electrify as
much of our activities as possible. This works in theory, but creates
significant challenges, such as how to manage the intermittency of supply from
sources such as solar panels and wind turbines.
A key
device used by Gates is to calculate the cost of clean alternatives relative to
fossil fuels, and where they are currently more expensive, to quantify the
difference as a “green premium”. He then explains how this premium can be
reduced through innovation and government policies. The credibility of the
strategy is strengthened by references throughout to technologies in which
Gates is investing his own money, such as novel ways to capture carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and then store it. He also acknowledges that his sincerity
will be doubted by some because of his wealth and use of private jets, for
instance. But I think readers will discover from his book that he is a serious
and genuine force for good on climate change.
Mann says that, far from needing a miracle, we could
achieve 100% clean electricity with current renewable technologies
The only
major concern I have is that in emphasising, correctly, the importance of rich
countries reaching zero emissions by 2050, he appears to suggest that cuts in
greenhouse gases over the next 10 years are less important. In fact, the amount
of warming we face depends on cumulative emissions, so countries such as the US
and UK need to be cutting sharply from now, and for the next 30 years.
Gates is
also caught in the crosshairs in Professor Michael E Mann’s book, The New
Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, which criticises the 2016
edition of the billionaire’s annual letter, written with Melinda, for
highlighting the challenges of cutting emissions and declaring “we need an
energy miracle”. Mann, America’s most famous climate scientist, points out that
many zero-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels are now cost-competitive with
fossil fuels. He even suggests that, far from needing a miracle, we could
achieve 100% clean electricity with current renewable technologies alone.
The main
focus of Mann’s book is a call to arms in the new war against “inactivists” who
are using new tactics of “deception, distraction and delay” to prevent the
phase-out of fossil fuels. Mann is a robust character, and has fought off
several disgraceful onslaughts against him and his work by climate change
deniers in US politics and the media over the past 20 years. He warns that
vested interests and ideological extremists who oppose efforts to eliminate
fossil fuels no longer deny outright the reality of climate change because
people can now see the evidence for it all around them. Instead, opponents of
action now rely on slightly subtler arguments, and Mann reveals how they are
sometimes unwittingly assisted by clumsy communications from climate scientists
and campaigners.
He cautions
against highlighting in particular the need for action by individual citizens
and consumers. As important as personal efforts are, they can distract
attention away from the critical role of governments and companies in making
systemic changes.
Mann
criticises the practice of flight-shaming climate researchers, because it
creates the false impression that experts have to experience personal sacrifice
and deprivation to be taken seriously, regardless of how successful they are in
persuading politicians to act. Despite the attention devoted to it, flying is
responsible for about 3% of annual greenhouse gas emissions.
Mann also
attacks “doomsayers”, including some members of Extinction Rebellion, who claim
that we have already passed the point of no return, condemning us all to
imminent climate destruction. Such claims are not based on science and have the
effect of making people give up on efforts to rid the world of fossil fuels.
Mann does
not pull his punches, but his aim is usually strong and true. This book will no
doubt prove controversial for some climate campaigners, as well as the deniers,
but I hope it will be read by everybody who is engaged in making the case for
action.
Both Mann
and Gates appear optimistic that the world can stop climate change, but they
are also under no illusions about the scale of the challenge we face and the
many obstacles that lie in our way. They also show just how wrong those people
are who think we cannot or should not succeed.
Bob Ward is
policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on
climate change and the environment at the London School of Economics and
Political Science
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions
We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates is published by Allen Lane
(£20). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back
Our Planet by Michael E Mann is published by Scribe (£16.99). To order a copy
go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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