How to Avoid a Climate Disaste

In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out awide-ranging, practical - and accessible - plan for how theworld can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in timeto avoid a climate catastrophe.

Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climatechange. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology,engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done inorder to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book,he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhousegases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on hisunderstanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, hedescribes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions,where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively,where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on theseessential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving thegoal of zero emissions-suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt,but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, andourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do,but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

Bill Gates is a technologist, business leader, and philanthropist. In 1975, hecofounded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen; today he and his wife,Melinda, are cochairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also launchedBreakthrough Energy, an effort to commercialize clean energy and other climate-related technologies. He and Melinda have three children and live in Medina,Washington.