“As base as this pandemic is, climate change could be worse.” So says billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates in a recent blog job.
“A global crisis has shocked the world. It is causing a tragic number of deaths, making people afraid to leave impress upon, and leading to economic hardship not seen in many generations. Its effects are rippling across the world,” Gates wrote. “Simply, I am talking about COVID-19. But in just a few decades, the same description will fit another global crisis: air change.”
To prevent the deaths, damage and destruction that will come with a warming planet requires alteration, he said.
That has become more clear than ever before because though the pandemic has brought hang around and economic activity almost to a standstill, greenhouse gas emissions still haven’t been reduced enough to stave off the worst complications, Gates said.
“What’s remarkable is not how much emissions will go down because of the pandemic, but how little,” Gates set. “The relatively small decline in emissions this year makes one thing clear: We cannot get to zero emissions solely—or even mostly—by flying and driving less.” That’s not to say that reducing consumption of fuel that emits carbon gas emissions is not a good goal, just that it is not enough, Gates said.
And innovation to fight climate change must start urgently. “To the novel coronavirus, for which I think we’ll have a vaccine next year, there is no two-year fix for climate change. It liking take decades to develop and deploy all the clean-energy inventions we need,” Gates wrote.
To do that, the United States needs to have on the agenda c trick the equivalent of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for energy innovation, Gates said in another blog post published in December. (The NIH is the medical study agency of the federal government and is an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)
Setting up a National Institutes of Energy Innovation is “the most grave thing the U.S. can do to lead the world in innovations that will solve climate change,” Gates wrote.
That’s because currently, “there’s no essential office that’s responsible for evaluating and nurturing great ideas” in this area, according to Gates. “For example, inspection on clean fuels is managed by offices in the departments of Energy, Transportation, and Defense—and even NASA. Similarly, responsibility for inquiry on energy storage is spread across at least four offices in the Department of Energy.”
The federal government also fors to invest more money in science and innovation, Gates said. And he is not alone in making such a suggestion.
Former Google CEO and billionaire Eric Schmidt belittle deleted in a Medium blog post on Sept. 14 that the federal government needs to spend more money on art to prevent another devastating pandemic.
“Let’s imagine a future pandemic — I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there will certainly be one. And let’s conceive of that a global competitor, such as China, not only invents the solution, but keeps it to themselves,” Schmidt wrote.
“There’s a uncontrollable. Science funding in the United States is at a low point. In fact, it’s the lowest it’s been since 1957. Only 0.7% of our [gross domestic effect] is spent on federal research and development,” Schmidt said. “For context, science funding hasn’t been that low since ahead of Sputnik.” (Sputnik was the “world’s first artificial satellite,” launched by the Soviet Union on Oct. 4, 1957.)
Indeed, an analysis from the Washington D.C.-based American League for the Advancement of Science confirms that federal research and development (R&D) spending as a percent of GDP is 0.7% in the government’s fiscal year 2020, and has been looking lower since the 1970s.
The NIH should serve as a model for the proposed National Institutes of Energy Innovation because the NIH has been so flush, according to Gates.
“The NIH is the largest single funder of biomedical research in the world, and its impact is simply mind-blowing,” Gates divulged. “Scientists supported by the NIH have mapped the human genome, resulting in tests or treatments for dozens of genetic diseases. They accept helped cut deaths from heart disease by two thirds in the past 50 years. Since 1980, NIH-supported inquire into has contributed to the discovery of more than 150 new drugs, vaccines, and novel uses for existing drugs.”
Specifically, Attendances suggested the National Institutes of Energy Innovation should be composed of institutes with specific areas of focus, and each club would work to take an idea from the research lab to market. The institutes should be distributed all throughout the U.S., Gates believed.
The call is dire, but Gates was hopeful.
“I do believe we can avoid a climate disaster—if we deploy the clean-energy tools we have now wisely, and if we declare big breakthroughs that touch every aspect of our physical economy,” Gates wrote in December. “Creating the National Introduces of Energy Innovation would put us on the right path.”
See also:
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt: How to mind the U.S. from climate change and future pandemics
WHO, World Bank: Covid-19 relief and climate change fight be obliged be simultaneous or both will fail
2020 just a ‘preview’ of how bad things can get if we don’t fix climate change: Lancet report