Bill Gates Quotes

Ozone and climate are global issues, and it's hard to find a way in which the benefits of shutting down carbon emissions are going to pay for themselves for any given power-plant, say.

Climate change is a huge problem, an almost insoluble problem, for two reasons. One is the habits of the West in terms of consumption. The other is the incredible iniquity between poor countries and rich countries on this planet.

People are spending way too much time thinking about climate change, way too little thinking about AI.

China has adopted and is implementing its national climate change program. This includes mandatory national targets for reducing energy intensity and discharge of major pollutants and increasing forest coverage and the share of renewable energy for the period of 2005 through 2010.

The world's richest half billion people - that's about seven per cent of the global population - are responsible for fifty per cent of the world's emissions.

The West has become the world model; developing countries are dreaming of living like us, which is impossible. They should reject our model, because it is not sustainable. Developing countries should even give us the example, but unfortunately that's not what happens.

Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course.

The Industrial Age is not sustainable. It's not sustainable in ecological terms, and it's not sustainable in human terms.

A diet that relies heavily on meat production results in higher emissions than a typical vegetarian diet. Different individuals will make different choices. However, the debate about climate change should not be dumbed down to a single slogan, such as 'give up meat to save the planet.'

As soon as you write about climate change, the first attempt to discredit you is, 'Well, you wrote this on a computer,' or, 'You took a plane to this conference.' So your opinion isn't valid.

We actually all care about the environment, and most people believe in climate change and believe that mankind has something to do with that - how much is scientifically debatable, but there is some effect and we all have an interest in reducing carbon emissions, just having cleaner air, cleaner oceans. It's something we can get behind.

It is not possible to have a strong, functioning business in a world of increasing inequality, poverty, and climate change.

Buying pollution credits is folly; it doesn't help the environment. Instead of using tax dollars to buy credits overseas, we'll use them at home.

I know that the precise magnitude and patterns of climate change cannot be fully predicted. But global warming clearly is a growing, long-term threat with profound consequences. And make no mistake about it, it will take decades to reverse.

I look at Los Angeles and I ask myself, How can this ever be sustainable? And what are we contributing to that? Because we are all complicit. None of us is without blame. It's so difficult and it's so overwhelming and I think we have to make small choices in our own lives that can loom large collectively.

Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over - unless we find new ways of producing energy.

The US really has to get out in front. We are the biggest per person, by a substantial amount, greenhouse emitters, and we give the most foreign aid, not per person but in absolute.

A cynic had defined aid as simply the system by which poor white people in rich countries gave money to rich black people in poor countries to put into Swiss bank accounts.

I have to tell you with regards to global warming that that's something, which, you're right, the scientists haven't entirely resolved, but no question about one thing, it's getting warmer, and a lot of good reasons for us to use less energy, to use it more efficiently and to develop sources here in this country that could allow us to be more independent of foreign sources.

The global warming is going on. These are not single cases. These are all part of a general way we've been looking at the world. As long as we look at the world that way it's going to go on. Because the idea that the important thing is for some people get rich while the rest of the people work for them is very deeply dug in...

India was a late comer to industrialization, and as such, we have contributed very little to the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. But we are determined to be part of the solution to the problem.

People in low-lying countries like Bangladesh with almost 140 million people who are managing to feed themselves, whose carbon emissions can't really be calculated (they are a rounding error in the UN's attempts to do national comparisons), and yet, most of whose people are at risk from increased flooding due to rising sea levels.

The climate challenge illustrates how we have to change. The developing countries need more support and opportunities to develop and use clean energy. Because if the current situation continues, then the world will not be able to handle this burden.

We acknowledge-now with President Obama-that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem we face with climate change.

Confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid down in scriptures, clearly.