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

Gates refers to this organization often throughout the book. It began as the Breakthrough Energy Coalition at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. At the request of François Hollande, the president of France at that time, Gates recruited a group of private investors to complement the work of the participating governments, all of which wanted to back technologies to reach the goal of zero emissions by 2050. The organization’s website address is breakthroughenergy.org.

Various gases create the greenhouse effect that is warming the planet and that we thus call greenhouse gases. Of these gases, the most well-known is carbon dioxide (CO2); others include methane and nitrous oxide. The heat they give off varies, so calculations sometimes involve a comparable unit, or carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).

Founded as the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, this organization no longer uses the full name, simply calling itself CGIAR. Gates refers to it as “the world’s largest agricultural research group” (165). It focuses on improving the quality of plant and animal genetics. Some of the work it sponsored, for example, led to breakthroughs in rice and wheat varieties that allow for greater yields and improve resistance to pests or tolerance for weather conditions.

The topic of the book is so well known that Gates never defines it. Climate change is the warming of the Earth and the resulting changes in weather patterns. Trapped greenhouse gases in the planet’s atmosphere cause climate change.

This is a process of removing carbon from the air, akin to vacuuming dust from a room. DAC is still in development but has immense potential if we can control the cost. Among many challenges is the fact that only 1 in 2,500 molecules taken from the air are carbon dioxide. By contrast, a similar technology, point capture (which Gates also discusses), removes carbon at the point that a process (such as making steel) creates it; while point capture is more promising because the carbon is concentrated, the technology is still expensive and thus not in wide use.

A drop-in fuel is one that can replace a fossil fuel without requiring any other adjustment or special equipment. An example of a drop-in fuel is a biofuel that can run an internal combustion engine without changes to the engine. Another example is a biofuel that could replace natural gas without changes to pipelines or other transport and delivery infrastructure or machinery. The obvious benefit of a drop-in fuel is that it minimizes changes and expense by using existing machines, technology, and infrastructure. Thus, a drop-in fuel has a smaller Green Premium than a fuel that requires changes to those elements.

This refers to a potential last-ditch effort to counteract the effects of climate change by intervening in the Earth’s atmosphere or oceans and making a temporary alteration. Gates gives the example of dispersing fine particles in the sky to screen out sunlight, in much the same way that volcanic ash does when a volcano erupts. Geoengineering would result in temporary cooling. However, because of ethical concerns about such a radical and direct intervention, its use is the subject of much debate.

Gates refers to Green Premiums throughout the book as measure of how close we are to widely replacing a process that uses dirty energy with a substitute that relies on clean energy. We calculate a premium simply by subtracting the cost of using dirty energy from the cost of using clean energy (which currently is higher in most cases). The larger the premium, the less likely its adoption and the more work we need to do to drive down the cost.

The term “greenhouse gases” derives from the fact that they cause a greenhouse effect, trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere without letting it escape. Several gases have this effect, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Each differs slightly in how much heat it generates and how long it stays in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide can remain for thousands of years. Methane and nitrous oxide, on the other hand, cause greater warming but don’t stay as long in the atmosphere.

This is a method of removing carbon dioxide before its emission into the atmosphere. Many processes create concentrated amounts of CO2 as a byproduct. For example, CO2 composes about 10% of emissions when burning coal to generate electricity. Special equipment can capture this CO2 and store it before it disperses into the air. Compare this to direct air capture, a much less efficient process that removes CO2 from the air in general.