Giving up a lavish lifestyle and becoming a vegetarian will not put a noticeable dent in climate change, said Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the fourth richest person in the world.
"In climate movements, you can get this, 'Hey, we've been consuming too much,' and 'Hey, maybe we shouldn't travel anymore,'" Gates said last week during a trip to India, Yahoo News reports. "I don't think we can count on people living an impoverished lifestyle as a solution to climate."
Giving up eating meat won't do much either, Gates added.
"Will all Indians become vegetarians? Will all Americans become vegetarians? I wouldn't want to count on it," he said, but added, "Anybody wants to evangelize that, they're welcome to."
Gates' words bring up a debate among climate advocates. Many, like Gates, see climate change as too big to be solved through individuals' lifestyle changes. Instead, they believe that only the development of new technologies can cut carbon emissions.
Biden administration climate envoy John Kerry is on that team, telling the BBC in 2021: "Fifty percent of the reductions we have to make to get to net zero by 2050 or 2045 are going to come from technologies that we don’t yet have."
Kerry mentioned TerraPower, which is developing advanced nuclear fission reactors and is backed by Gates, as an example of one of those technologies.
"There are a lot of possibilities out there," Kerry said. "Bill Gates is pursuing a small, modular, next-generation nuclear capacity. We're going to find our way to zero emissions as fast as possible."
The people on Gates' side of the argument believe individual actions will never meet the goal because of studies such as environmental nonprofit CDP's 2017 report, which found that 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions came from only 100 companies, led by oil firms.
On the other side is the United Nations, which has long held that lifestyle choices do make a difference.
"Everyone can help limit climate change. From the way we travel, to the electricity we use, the food we eat, and the things we buy, we can make a difference," reads a U.N. website pointing out 10 actions people can take to help.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.