Bill Gates: “By 2060, Climate Change Could Be Just as Deadly as COVID-19”

Bill Gates recently wrote a blog post regarding COVID-19 and climate change.

In his article titled “COVID-19 is awful. Climate change could be worse,” the billionaire argued that the impact of climate change will be worse without corrective action.

“If you want to understand the kind of damage that climate change will inflict, look at COVID-19 and spread the pain out over a much longer period of time. The loss of life and economic misery caused by this pandemic are on par with what will happen regularly if we do not eliminate the world’s carbon emissions,” Gates wrote.

Gates also estimated that by 2060, “climate change could be just as deadly as COVID-19, and by 2100 it could be five times as deadly.”

Climate Change v.s. COVID-19

BEEN SCREAMING THIS! @BillGates

"Consider what it’s taken to achieve an 8% reduction. 600K+ people have died, and tens of millions are out of work… What’s remarkable is not how much emissions will go down because of the pandemic, but how LITTLE"https://t.co/vZElpvUqks

— Shanu Mathew (@ShanuMathew93) August 6, 2020

Fox News reported that early in the pandemic, some have drawn comparisons between the virus and climate change. In these comparisons, people credited economic shutdowns with reducing carbon emissions. While Gates acknowledged this, he said temporary restrictions are not enough to address rising emissions.

“What’s remarkable is not how much emissions will go down because of the pandemic, but how little,” Gates said, referring to a July report that estimates the cost of emissions reductions.

Gates then reiterated that learning the lessons of COVID-19 can help us “approach climate change more informed about the consequences of inaction.”

“The key point is not that climate change will be disastrous. The key point is that, if we learn the lessons of COVID-19, we can approach climate change more informed about the consequences of inaction, and more prepared to save lives and prevent the worst possible outcome,” he also wrote. “The current global crisis can inform our response to the next one,” then added.

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