Bill Gates seeks to partner with Jeff Bezos to fight climate change

Bill Gates wants to work more closely with Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos, to fight against climate change which, according to the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., could make the deaths and global impact of the current pandemic appear minimal compared to the devastation caused by the climate crisis.

“The deaths will only increase as there will be more heat waves, wildfires and, most importantly, the ability to go out and farm anywhere near the equator will be lost.”Gates said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Emily Chang. His book, “How to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe,” went on sale earlier this month.

Unlike the pandemic, difficult to get people to focus on disasters, which may seem decades away, in time to avoid them. “It’s a real test for humanity to invest in advance for the problems that will come later,” Gates said.

This is the part where the collaboration with Bezos comes into play – who has pledged a few million dollars more against climate change than Gates himself – and Gates is hoping they can. collaborate to support costly green alternatives in the early stages of currently available technologies.

In his book, Gates uses the concept of “Green Premium”, the price difference between a traditional carbon-emitting technology, such as a gasoline-powered car, and its ecological alternative, an electric car. When the price of these new technologies is too high for mainstream consumers or governments, people like Gates and Bezos could use their capital to stimulate demand and lower prices to a level that works for everyone.

“The idea of ​​creating a demand side for these organic products, even at the initial stage, where their organic premium is very high, is something that I realized is one of the missing pieces,” he said. -he declares. Doors. “We want businesses and governments to get involved, but having a solid foundation of philanthropic capital to start with would be great.”.

Gates said that not a bitcoin fanEither for environmental reasons, it consumes a lot of energy, or for private investors who are not called Elon Musk.

“Elon has tons of money and he’s very sophisticated so I don’t care if his bitcoin randomly goes up or down,” he said. “I think people who don’t have a lot of money to spend get carried away by these fads, so I’m not a Bitcoin fan, and I generally think if you have less money than Elon, you should probably be careful. “

Gates, a longtime fan of fast food burgers, much of his early work at Microsoft was fueled by the neighboring Burgermaster and has occasionally been seen in line at Dick’s Burgers in Seattle, Swapped half of his burger consumption for plant-based products like Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat. As they improve, he hopes to increase his consumption, but he’s not ruling out beef entirely.

“Some people are trying to change the diet of the cow or capture the methane that they produce, so, you know, I still prefer not to rule out the beef.”Gates said.

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