Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, a billionaire and a renowned philanthropist, by his own admission, is "an imperfect messenger on climate change". He even accepts that his carbon footprint is "absurdly high".

But in his new book, "How To Avoid A Climate Disaster", Bill Gates wants the world to keep in mind just two numbers about the climate change crisis. These numbers are 5 billion and zero. The first number, in tonnes, is greenhouse gases the world adds to the atmosphere every year, while the second number is what we need to aim for, he says.

The co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says, "I can't deny being a rich guy with an opinion." He even admitted that he flew a private jet to the Paris climate change summit in 2015.

"For a long time I have felt guilty about this," he writes, adding "Working on this book has made me even more conscious of my responsibility to reduce my emissions; shrinking my carbon footprint is the least that can be expected of someone in my position."

In 2020, Gates says, he started buying sustainable jet fuel and aims to "fully offset my family’s aviation emissions in 2021".

"For our non-aviation emissions, I’m buying offsets through a company that removes carbon dioxide from the air and a nonprofit that installs clean energy upgrades in affordable housing units in Chicago," he explains in the book.

Gates, who is worth more than $100 billion, writes that the emissions last year dropped about 5 percent due to the pandemic.

Next, Gates plans to invest heavily in zero-carbon technologies to curb carbon emissions.

"Some things, like electricity and cars, get lots of attention, but they are only the beginning. Passenger cars represent less than half of all the emissions from transportation, which in turn is 16% of all emissions worldwide. Meanwhile, making steel and cement accounts for around 10% of all emissions," he writes, according to excerpts published in The Guardian.

The billionaire also says that he has invested over a billion dollars in approaches "that I hope will help the world get to zero, including affordable and reliable clean energy and low-emissions cement, steel, meat and more."

The question, he says, is this: what should we do with this momentum?

He answers: "We should spend the next decade focusing on the technologies, policies and market structures that will put us on the path to eliminating greenhouse gases by 2050."

"It’s hard to think of a better response to a miserable 2020 than spending the next 10 years dedicating ourselves to this ambitious goal."

(Edited by : Aditi Gautam)

First Published:Feb 15, 2021 4:33 PM IST