Bill Gates published a blog on Tuesday to warn people of a potential catastrophe and urge preparedness for that matter. Gates has been known as an advocate of 'pandemic preparedness' as he gave a popular TedTalk back in 2015 to inform people of a tremendous number of deaths that could result from a potential global pandemic.
In the blog, Gates stressed that climate change could be worse than the current Covid pandemic. In an attempt to make people understand the potential devastating consequences of climate change, he wrote "look at COVID-19 and spread the pain out over a much longer period of time. " He further added that if we do not eliminate carbon emissions, we would face a great ''loss of life and economic misery.''.
He also compared the death toll rate of Covid to the expected increase in mortality rate as a result of rising global temperatures. Gates estimated that within the next 40 years, there would be 14 deaths per 100,000 as a result of climate change and 73 additional deaths per 100,000 by the end of the century if emission growth remains high. He further added that death rates could potentially drop to 10 per 100,000 if carbon emissions are reduced. Therefore, in either case, the mortality rate would be either as high as the current Covid death rate or far higher than it. Gates said, "By 2100, climate change could be five times as deadly."
He continued talking about further impact of the rising temperatures, saying that with the equivalent expenditure and financial pain from the occurrence of a pandemic every ten years, the economic impact would be too tragic as governments are forced to spend more of GDP taking care of the consequences of climate change.
