This Thursday begins the 30th annual United Nations climate meeting, known as COP30, which will take place in Belém, Brazil. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, released a memo last week addressing the direction he hopes attendees will take when planning new climate action. His message is best summarized as a plea for attention to be set upon human welfare in the face of looming climate change. I agree wholeheartedly that we need to commit to protecting our vulnerable communities across the globe and think critically about what best achieves this goal. But I urge everyone not to forget that the world is much bigger than we are.
One of Gates’ main points is that we should rethink the metrics we use to measure climate progress. “The global temperature doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of people’s lives,” he claims. In this, he is referring to the United Nations’ Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 parties at COP21 in 2016. This accord set the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Reaching this goal is set to be the focus of the conference, yet Gates stands opposed, claiming that development is much more effective at reducing human suffering. Indeed, in the human world, access to clean water, healthcare and education are essential – and inconstant – parts of the equation that we should prioritize for our collective wellbeing. However, it is exceedingly dangerous to paint global warming as a secondary issue the way he does.
For many species that contribute to our global ecosystem, temperature is not an abstract metric, but relied upon heavily, sometimes more than any other factor. For example, an increase of 1°C in ocean temperatures is deadly for coral reefs, which in turn support a quarter of all marine life. Other species may not be as sensitive to temperature directly, but their interconnected food webs – of which we are an undeniable part of – rely upon organisms that are. Further, warming temperatures cause unprecedented land animal migrations toward colder polar regions, which threaten ecosystems everywhere and risk species extinction. We rely on our ecosystems as a source of food, for pollination and for water purification for our freshwater reservoirs. When they are threatened, so are we. Global warming is not a nuisance in the backdrop of our developed world, but an upending of the foundation it stands on.
Furthermore, Gates rests our future on the promise of technological innovation to reduce what he refers to as the Green Premium, ensuring that green alternatives like solar energy cost the same or less than our typical options. It is not an uncommon perspective in an age defined by development, but it falls short. While it is crucial to make these technologies affordable, it is not enough to try to simply transform our world into a green mirror image of what it is now — we are going to have to make changes.
Passive systems and nature-based solutions, innovations that use Earth’s natural tendencies instead of artificial mechanisms, are another crucial element. For instance, developing affordable and green air conditioning technology is helpful to adapt to warming temperatures, but it’s not the only solution, nor the best. We can also take advantage of the cooling properties of green roofs, a layer of vegetation grown on top of a building. One study found that they can reduce indoor air temperatures by up to 15°C. This solution works with – not against – nature, and we see the advantage of that approach in its far-reaching benefits, like improving air quality and reducing stormwater runoff, all without requiring energy-intensive manufacturing or generating solid waste.
This is just one example of a recurring truth: it’s easier to paddle with the tide. If there’s anything we can learn from our current climate predicament, it’s that we cannot bend nature to our will. Making green technology like solar energy and clean jet fuel will help us, but it won’t save us. Our future instead rests on our as-yet-pending choice of whether to live harmoniously with the world around us or to bend and break it. And we’re running out of time.
Overall, the underlying fallacy in Gates’ memo is the idea that we can best promote human welfare by focusing only on ourselves. Poverty and disease will not be eradicated by simply protecting natural lands and lowering global temperatures, and Gates is right that we need to fight those problems head on. At the same time, eradicating those problems will not be enough if we follow his suggestions and neglect global warming as an issue in its own right, resulting in the collapse of ecosystems – and eventually the planet. We need to recognize both of these legitimate and urgent elements in our pursuit of a good, healthy world.
Put simply, to protect all of us who live on this synergistic planet, we need to protect all of us; to ensure harmony in the whole system, we need to strive for harmony — in the whole system.