We’ve heard from a few people who thought we took a cheap shot at Bill Gates by claiming that, as long as Steve Jobs is at the helm of Apple, Gates is destined to be the George Harrison of tech innovation. Of course, how can we question the genius of a man who has so clearly changed the world? And, by the way, continues to do so through his philanthropy. In fact, it may be for his efforts to reduce poverty and increase access to healthcare and technology throughout the world that Gates will ultimately make the biggest difference. So, we’re not down on Gates- but how much influence does he continue to have on the ways in which Microsoft develops and rolls out product? Again, his role now seems to be as a billionaire philanthropist difference maker. And in that role, he has no equal (other than his collaborator Warren Buffett, who has given more than $30 billion to Gates’s foundation).
So, it was in that role, as influencer, that Bill Gates recently wrote on his blog that we need “innovation, not just insulation” in order to reduce CO2 to manageable levels. Small-scale tweaks to the system might get us to 30% CO2 reduction by 2020, but the long-term goal of 80% reduction by 2050 may be impossible without large-scale innovation, significant changes in the way we use energy, the types of energy we use, and the technologies we use for energy conversion.
Gates writes, “because 2020 is too soon for innovation to be completed and widely deployed, behavior change and efficiency still matter” the goal should be large-scale innovation and legislation that focuses on 2050. “Innovation in transportation and electricity will be the key factor,” he says. “I hear a lot of climate change experts focus totally on 2020 or talk about how great it is that there is so much low hanging fruit that will make a difference. This mostly focuses on saving a little bit of energy, which by itself is simply not enough.” Gates warns that “the danger is people will think they just need to do a little bit and things will be fine.”
He continues, “to achieve the kinds of innovations that will be required I think a distributed system of R&D with economic rewards for innovators and strong government encouragement is the key. There just isn’t enough work going on today to get us to where we need to go.” We need to fix market barriers and dysfunctions that prevent these gains from being realized, he explains.
“No amount of insulation will get us there,” he writes, and “the world is distracted from what counts on this issue in a big way.”
Gates’s comments have, predictably, provoked mixed reactions in the blogsphere. Writing for Grist, Sean Casten supports Gates’s theory, but cautions that large-scale innovation cannot, by itself, get us where we need to go. Without proper legislation, without first meeting intermediate goals, “we’d simply throw another technology on a line of undeployed (but otherwise really cool) technologies.”
Gates is right. So too is Casten. We need do large-scale innovation, and we need to address the market barriers to real innovation in tomorrow’s clean technology, but, as Casten writes, “energy efficiency is the canary in the coal mine. But the cart can’t lead the horse.”
[Sources: The Gates Notes, Grist]
