Left-wing billionaire Bill Gates claimed on Sunday during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that if the world does not completely eliminate greenhouse gases within the next 30 years that people won’t be able to go outside, there will be a massive migration crisis, and things will be five times worse than they were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You say that we have to go from the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions from 51 billion tons to zero – zero by the year 2050, and that anything less than that will precipitate a catastrophe,” Fox News host Chris Wallace said.
“Well, yes. The CO2 stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years, and that’s what forces the temperatures to go up. And so, it’s really the sum of all those emissions starting in the industrial age that’s causing this temperature forcing with all of its ill effects,” Gates said. “You know, there’s no magic date that, it’s all great until then, and it’s — it’s terrible once you cross that threshold. It’s pretty linear as far as we know. 2050 happens to be the soonest realistic date for the world to change all of these source emissions — which are actually quite broader than most people are aware of, because it’s got things like steel and cement, not just cars and electricity.”
Gates also claimed during the interview that the fact that he lives in mansions and flies around in private jets is not really the issue that critics say it is when they point out his hypocrisy because he is “offsetting” his carbon emissions.
“You admit at the very start of your book in the opening pages that you are an imperfect messenger for all this — you admit, you acknowledge you live in big houses, you fly around in private jets and have a big carbon footprint,” Wallace said. “So, how do you answer people who say, well, who’s Bill Gates to preach to us?”
“That’s absolutely right, I am offsetting my carbon emissions by buying clean aviation fuel and funding carbon capture and funding low-cost housing projects to use electricity instead of a natural gas,” Gates responded. “And so, I’ve – I have been able to eliminate it, and it was amazing to me how expensive that was. We’ve – that cost of being green, the green premium, we’ve got to drive that down.”
When asked what happens “if we don’t make it” to “zero net emissions by 2050,” Gates claimed, “Well, the migration that we saw out of Syria for their civil war, which was somewhat weather dependent, we’re going to have 10 times as much migration because the equatorial areas will become unlivable.”
“You won’t be able to farm or go outside during the summer,” Gates claimed. “The wildfires, the – you know, even the farming productivity in the south of the U.S., the droughts will reduce productivity very dramatically. And it’s all a matter of degree. If we wait 10 more years, it’s not as bad as if we wait 20 or you wait 30, because the temperature just keeps going up, and it’s going up more rapidly than it has in natural history. But the instability overall will be five times as many deaths at the peak of the pandemic and going up every year.”
WATCH:
Billionaire Bill Gates pushes climate hysteria: We eliminate all greenhouse gases in 30 years otherwise you won’t be able to farm or go outside during the summer and “the instability overall will be five times as many deaths at the peak of the pandemic and going up every year.” pic.twitter.com/FBRzRSA5VF
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) February 21, 2021
TRANSCRIPT:
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: Critics say, you know, it’s easy to talk about getting off fossil fuels, it’s easy to talk about going to a plant-based diet, but the reality is that hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs — that the coal miners in West Virginia or the livestock ranchers in Nebraska will be wiped out.
BILL GATES, CO-FOUNDER, MICROSOFT: Well, it’s very important, as we solve this problem, that we not cause those community dislocations.
We have a 30-year transition period. The skill sets involved, whether it’s making clean hydrogen, sequestering CO2, the engineering skill sets, the things that those workers do will be important.
In fact, we’re going to have to almost triple the size of the electric grid and build all that transmission. And so, it’s not like there’s going to be a shortage of jobs overall, it’s just balancing to make sure that each community gets into the plan.
WALLACE: Let’s talk about your book. You say that we have to go from the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions from 51 billion tons to zero – zero by the year 2050, and that anything less than that will precipitate a catastrophe.
GATES: Well, yes. The CO2 stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years, and that’s what forces the temperatures to go up. And so, it’s really the sum of all those emissions starting in the industrial age that’s causing this temperature forcing with all of its ill effects.
You know, there’s no magic date that, it’s all great until then, and it’s — it’s terrible once you cross that threshold. It’s pretty linear as far as we know.
2050 happens to be the soonest realistic date for the world to change all of these source emissions — which are actually quite broader than most people are aware of, because it’s got things like steel and cement, not just cars and electricity.
WALLACE: I want to pick up on that because you say in your book, don’t fool yourselves, this is going to be hard. And you have a chart that I want to put up in your book of how much greenhouse gas is emitted by what we do.
Making things – cement, steel, plastic 31 percent of all emissions, plugging in — electricity 27 percent, growing things 19 percent, getting around — transportation 16 percent, and keeping warm and cool 7 percent.
You say a lot of the things that we’re focused on now like electric vehicles are important, but that’s the easy part.
GATES: Exactly. If all you had to do was a 30 percent reduction, then you should take the easiest 30 percent.
Because the goal is to get to zero, you’ve got to work in parallel, not just on the easy stuff, but also on the very hard stuff. You’ve got to increase R&D budgets. You’ve got to have lots of risk capital to make these products in a new way, and hopefully create companies that not only build jobs but export these green approaches to the entire world.
WALLACE: You admit at the very start of your book in the opening pages that you are an imperfect messenger for all this — you admit, you acknowledge you live in big houses, you fly around in private jets and have a big carbon footprint.
So, how do you answer people who say, well, who’s Bill Gates to preach to us?
GATES: That’s absolutely right, I am offsetting my carbon emissions by buying clean aviation fuel and funding carbon capture and funding low-cost housing projects to use electricity instead of a natural gas.
And so, I’ve – I have been able to eliminate it, and it was amazing to me how expensive that was. We’ve – that cost of being green, the green premium, we’ve got to drive that down.
But, to me, my experience in innovation and thinking about the right metrics, I felt like, if we have this idealistic generation and this wonderful goal, we need a plan and that my experience could help contribute to that plan.
WALLACE: Then there are the critics on the left who say you are behind the curve, and that, in fact, you should be supporting the Green New Deal and going for zero net emissions, not in 2050, but in 2030.
GATES: Yeah, it’s completely unrealistic to think we could eliminate emissions by 2030.
And not seeing that this problem is hard is – will be part of the difficulty of getting engaged into it, into it.
So, where I come out, and I’ll try to have great debates with people, is that it’s very hard. We’re going to have to use all 30 years, but it’s not impossible.
WALLACE: And what happens if we don’t make it, if we don’t get to zero net emissions by 2050? What – how will our daily lives be different?
GATES: Well, the migration that we saw out of Syria for their civil war, which was somewhat weather dependent, we’re going to have 10 times as much migration because the equatorial areas will become unlivable. You won’t be able to farm or go outside during the summer.
The wildfires, the – you know, even the farming productivity in the south of the U.S., the droughts will reduce productivity very dramatically.
And it’s all a matter of degree. If we wait 10 more years, it’s not as bad as if we wait 20 or you wait 30, because the temperature just keeps going up, and it’s going up more rapidly than it has in natural history.
But the instability overall will be five times as many deaths at the peak of the pandemic and going up every year.