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

By Simon Hørup Eskildsen · 2021-09-29 · Book by Bill Gates, rated 5/5 · https://sirupsen.com/books/climate-disaster

Part depressing, part optimistic, but wholly sober and easy to understand. The
levelheadedness and simplicity of this book is wonderfully refreshing. The
book's quiet mastery comes from decades of capital allocation in climate change.
I picked up this book with a bit of skepticism but put it down with admiration.

What I like the most is that everything is rooted in baserates: 51 billion tons
of carbon equivalents emitted per year. Gates' foundation doesn't bother looking
at anything that doesn't have the potential to at least remove 1% of that a
year. Relate every number back to that.

Ten million pie charts are floating around of what percentage of emissions come
from what. Gates wins the simplification once again with this banger:

> Making things (cement, steel, plastic) 31%
> Plugging in (electricity) 27%
> Growing things (plants, animals) 19%
> Getting around (planes, trucks, cargo ships) 16%
> Keeping warm and cool (heating, cooling, refrigeration) 7%

Boom. Another one:

> World 5,000 GW
> USA   1,000 GW
> City  1 GW
> Town  1 MW
> House 1 KW

The book contains serious put-the-book-down-and-let-out-a-huge-sigh-of-defeat
moments. Trees planted in the snowy north typically have a _negative_ effect on
global warming, as they tend to absorb more heat than reflecting snow (those in
the tropics are great though). Sigh. Hydropower dams are often worse than coal
for 50-100 years, as the reservoir will cover new soil and release serious
amounts of methane. Deep exhale. Sea levels aren't just rising because of
melting ice, but also because water expands as it gets hotter. Exasperation.

Despite this, there is a strong sense of stolid optimism permuating the book. It
is not defeatist, it is stoic.

Products that are lower emissions _already_ exist. But they are still too
expensive to replace the other products. So we need a carbon tax.
Direct-air-capture (DAC) costs $100-200 per ton. That externality must be prized
in: gas is cheaper than honey, maple syrup, yogurt, and every soda. Is that
right? We could, if we can scale these technologies quickly, get to zero-carbon
by investing ~6 trillion a year. That's optimistic. But also makes it clear that
subsidizing lower emissions steel is far cheaper, but also a harder back of the
envelope calculation.

The book, like some climate change books, doesn't include a direct roadmap.
First I thought this would be a criticism, but I think the team's smart enough
to know that it's outdated shortly. This is a snapshot of everything we know as
of this moment, and it's an impressive one at that. Highly recommended.