Bill Gates Calls For Scientific Innovation To Address Climate Change, Calls On India To Take The Lead
"We are looking to India for a significant part of that so that we can overcome the world's great challenges," Gates said.
New Delhi: Billionaire-philanthropist Bill Gates, on Wednesday, expressed his concerns over the climate crisis, and called for scientific innovations to address the problem, asking India to take the lead.
While the "global innovation boom" is taking on the tough problems of climate change, the world is "counting on India to play a central role, Gates said.
Giving the example of COVID-19, Gates said, India with its record on vaccine development and digital public infrastructure, has shown itself as a potential to become a hub of “innovation and ingenuity,” to herald a “new era of global partnership” which can overcome the world’s greatest challenges.
"It just gets worse somewhere slightly every year, but it's one of the hardest things to fix because modern economies throughout the globe are based on energy intensity and over 80 per cent of this energy comes from burning hydrocarbons," he said.
Gates, co-chair and trustee of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was delivering the fifth Ramnath Goenka lecture on 'Creating an Equal World: Power of Innovation'. The event was organised by The Indian Express Group.
While speaking on the climate crisis, he said, “Most of the emissions come from the rich countries and yet most of the damage will be in middle income and lower income countries that are near the Equator. It’s an incredible injustice. And, even though it creeps up on you, we need to act now, we need to act in a very big way.”
To address the problem of climate change, he said, the challenge is "pretty incredible" when it comes to creating solutions that are not just cheap but also reliable.
One of the challenges though with climate change, Indian Express quotes Gates, is the “green premium” that comes with products made without emitting greenhouse gases. He said, “If you try to buy jet fuel that’s green, it’s twice as expensive. If you want to buy cement without emission, it’s twice as expensive. Now someone could say that climate is important so let’s get somebody to write a cheque for that extra cost. But sadly that will be trillions of dollars a year. And, there just is no fund… even in the rich countries.” However, the climate crisis is an innovation challenge that shrinks the green premium.
"I find these challenges exciting and I always see a chance for innovation if we can get young people and explain that challenge to them and get capital to them. Then I think innovation can help continue with the human progress," he said.
"You have got 700 million young people, you have educational institutions, it just gets stronger. So we need innovation from the whole world, but a lot specifically from India," he said.
"We are looking to India for a significant part of that so that we can overcome the world's great challenges," he added.
Bill Gates said that when he was at Microsoft, they chose to put a development centre in India. "And we did that because we knew India was going to play a major role in the global innovation ecosystem – not just as a beneficiary of new breakthroughs, but as an innovator of them. In addition, as a scaler of breakthroughs. India can develop high-quality yet cost-effective innovations and drive their rapid adoption. Vaccines are a prime example.”
"India is leading the way in showing all sorts of innovative applications," he added.
Earlier, during a meeting at Nirman Bhawan with union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, the Microsoft co-founder appreciated how India worked excellently during the COVID pandemic.
Mandaviya showed Gates the dedicated war room at the ministry which is now known as Health Emergency Operation Centre and National Public Health Observatory. It was set up during the COVID pandemic, the official said.
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