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Speaker 1: We're here Cop twenty eight. Are you optimistic about our future?

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Speaker 2: I'm optimistic in general.

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Speaker 3: A lot of the power of human innovation is showing

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Speaker 3: here and in all the work I do.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean? Does that mean that you measure

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Speaker 1: success as in pledges? Do we measure success as trying

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Speaker 1: to do better and putting more money where it should be?

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Speaker 3: Well, in the end, it's all about the human condition.

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Speaker 3: You know, more people are living longer. You know, we've

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Speaker 3: cut childhood death in half. Claimate is this negative thing

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Speaker 3: that's slowing down that progress? And so in mitigation, you know,

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Speaker 3: we want to make sure the temperature doesn't get too high,

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Speaker 3: and then an adaptation, we want to make sure that

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Speaker 3: the ill effects that whatever we can't mitigate, that it

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Speaker 3: doesn't reverse this incredible rate of human improvement.

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Speaker 1: But what are you most apt to mystic about? Is

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Speaker 1: it business or is it actually leaders coming together with pledges?

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Speaker 2: Well?

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Speaker 3: Climate change, you know, overall it's a challenge to the world.

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Speaker 3: Hydrocarbons have been very cheap. Our economy is built around

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Speaker 3: you know, coal, gas oil, and so we have to

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Speaker 3: make this change. The progression of inventing new approaches, green approaches,

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Speaker 3: and then implementing them and over time scaling them and

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Speaker 3: getting them so cheap what I call zero green premium.

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Speaker 3: You first have to have risk capital. Then you have

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Speaker 3: to have bigger amounts capital, eventually, as they say, trillions

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Speaker 3: of dollars to get every country to replace its steel plants,

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Speaker 3: its cement plants, and so depending on the emissions area.

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Speaker 3: Some of these things like steel and cement were at

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Speaker 3: the very early stage. Some like electric cars, at least

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Speaker 3: at the high end. The green premium, you could say,

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Speaker 3: is zero, not for low cost cars where you park

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Speaker 3: on the street. But you so all these things, you know,

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Speaker 3: and the faster we go, the less temperature increase we'll see.

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Speaker 1: But do you think we're going fast enough to actually

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Speaker 1: hit the targets that were set out in the Paris Agreement.

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Speaker 3: No, we won't hit hit no to aspirational targets. Well,

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Speaker 3: you can do the math on one point five and

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Speaker 3: even two point zero. Isn't that likely?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 3: Fortunately, if you stay below three, a lot of the

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Speaker 3: ill effects that people have heard about don't happen unless

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Speaker 3: you really are irresponsible.

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Speaker 2: And let it get up to the higher range.

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Speaker 1: I mean, many people say it's innovation, but it's also

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Speaker 1: with making sure that we don't waste energy in the

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Speaker 1: things that we have. Now, how are we doing on that? Again,

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Speaker 1: if you see all of the different components to try

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Speaker 1: and to stick to the pairs agreement, is there any

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Speaker 1: low hanging fruit that we should be thinking about.

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Speaker 3: Well, there's lots of things in energy efficiency, but that's

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Speaker 3: primarily you know, in rich countries where energy has been

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Speaker 3: so cheap that you know, we leave the lights on

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Speaker 3: at night, we construct things where you have to drive

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Speaker 3: long distances. Most of the emissions are coming from middle

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Speaker 3: income countries and what they're doing to build roads and

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Speaker 3: shelter is providing sort of the basic level that I

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Speaker 3: think we'd all agree everyone should have access to. And

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Speaker 3: so you know, we can't get rid of that.

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Speaker 2: We can make it. We can have some efficiency.

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Speaker 3: A good example of that is the current windows were

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Speaker 3: never designed to avoid the heat leaking out, and so

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Speaker 3: if you're willing to pay for this improved window it's

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Speaker 3: called lux wall, and there's others, then your heating built

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Speaker 3: goes down.

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Speaker 1: What about food and agriculture.

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Speaker 3: Well, food is fascinating because food is a source of emissions,

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Speaker 3: particularly cows and rice and fertilizer, but also The biggest

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Speaker 3: negative effect of climate is that poor farmers who live

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Speaker 3: near the equator, their crops are going to fail far

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Speaker 3: more often, and that leads to malnutrition, which leads to

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Speaker 3: vulnerability and way more deaths. And so we've got to

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Speaker 3: innovate in agriculture both to get rid of emissions, but

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Speaker 3: also just so these farmers can have food and you know,

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Speaker 3: continue to have.

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Speaker 2: Their life expectancy go up.

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Speaker 1: But it's never in a communicate. Are you disappointed that

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Speaker 1: it's never quite the focus of a cop that food

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Speaker 1: isn't well.

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Speaker 3: This cop did a better job on both food and

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Speaker 3: health than previous cops.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: On the first day, we had a lot of announcements

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Speaker 3: to the commitments to the group that does better seeds

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Speaker 3: called the CG system. You know, they should be famous

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Speaker 3: because in the nineteen seventies, when Asia thought their population

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Speaker 3: growth would create widespread starvation, it was this CG system

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Speaker 3: with better seeds for wheat and rice and corn.

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Speaker 2: That avoided that starvation.

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Speaker 3: Now we need to reactivate that system include a lot

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Speaker 3: more crops, and so we saw commitments to that CG

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Speaker 3: system That was a first for a climate event.

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Speaker 1: Now you've supported a lot of innovative companies with new techies.

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Speaker 1: Are you optimistic that you're getting extra funds, enough funds

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Speaker 1: off people interested to reach critical mass.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

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Speaker 3: So it was in twenty fifteen I committed with the

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Speaker 3: Paris Agreement. I committed to create Breakthrough Energy and have

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Speaker 3: high risk capital for these companies with wild ideas to

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Speaker 3: how to make meat steal cement, and that's gone very well.

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Speaker 3: We have over one hundred companies now here at this

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Speaker 3: cop over thirty of them had these boots where they

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Speaker 3: could talk about their work, and the reason for that

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Speaker 3: is for them to find partners. You know, these are

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Speaker 3: small companies working at small scale and so partnering up

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Speaker 3: with big companies.

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Speaker 2: All over the world.

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Speaker 3: That's one of the biggest pieces of progress that took

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Speaker 3: place at this cop because we had more of the

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Speaker 3: big companies keen and that's why the attendance was so high.

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Speaker 3: But those side discussions where people look at the little

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Speaker 3: compan and say, wow, you can do that will help

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Speaker 3: you make it big, make it cheaper. So I'm thrilled

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Speaker 3: that this Breakthrough Energy team and those entrepreneurs will be

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Speaker 3: key to solving climate change.

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Speaker 1: But how many of these small companies need to be

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Speaker 1: in developing nations to really also you know, become critical

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Speaker 1: and is it difficult to get the flows the capital

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Speaker 1: to these smaller companies.

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Speaker 3: So the you know, a lot of the innovators are

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Speaker 3: in the high income countries, even though they might have

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Speaker 3: been born all over the world, the US, Europe, they

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Speaker 3: need to partner with companies in what I call the

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Speaker 3: middle income countries, you know, India, China, Brazil, that's where

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Speaker 3: two thirds of the emissions are are those middle income countries.

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Speaker 3: So the rich countries, not only do we need to

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Speaker 3: get our missions to zero, but we need to be

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Speaker 3: involved in the innovation and the learning curve so that

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Speaker 3: when we say to India, hey, please change your cement,

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Speaker 3: they don't come back and say, but that's way more expensive.

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Speaker 3: You should pay for it, and we'll get into a

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Speaker 3: deadlock and we won't get rid of those emissions.

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Speaker 2: And that's happening, yes.

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Speaker 3: So the startup cement companies are now meeting with the

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Speaker 3: big cement companies and seeing, okay, at least in the

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Speaker 3: lab it looks like you can make cement without emissions.

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Speaker 3: That over time, if you refine all these things, it

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Speaker 3: will be the same cost. And so yeah, those are

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Speaker 3: the meetings that I'm most thrilled about. It's when the

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Speaker 3: big companies look at it and say this might work.

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Speaker 1: Where do you see the role of fossil fuels going forward, Well.

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Speaker 3: We have to outcompete fossil fuels.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: To do that properly, they you know, they shouldn't get subsidies,

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Speaker 3: and in fact, a carbon tax over time should be

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Speaker 3: put on so that the new you know, say the

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Speaker 3: electric car or the plane that use hydrogen, the fact

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Speaker 3: it doesn't emit carbon, you're.

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Speaker 2: Helping it get adoption.

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Speaker 3: Those companies have skills, you know, if you want to

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Speaker 3: sequester carbon or you know, nuclear ways, or there's a

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Speaker 3: lot of skills if you want to make biofuels. Uh.

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Speaker 3: You know, some of those companies will take the capital

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Speaker 3: and skills they have. Uh. You know, so I wouldn't

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Speaker 3: you know, say okay, I wish they weren't there. You know,

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Speaker 3: people still, you know, there's no country that can say, okay,

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Speaker 3: we have zero emissions.

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Speaker 2: Uh, you know, people want to drive to work. You know.

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Speaker 3: In fact, the excess supply when Russia cut off its supply,

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Speaker 3: you know the world was sort of.

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Speaker 2: Glad that that that was available.

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Speaker 3: And so yes, oil and gas needs to be out competed,

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Speaker 3: and those companies need to join the effort.

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Speaker 1: I know you look at a lot of technologies and

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Speaker 1: a lot of innovation, But is there one thing that

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Speaker 1: you've been most excited about in the past five years

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Speaker 1: or that you're most excited about for the future. I

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Speaker 1: know we talked about nuclear fue we I mean we

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Speaker 1: talk a lot about the really big, you know, exciting stuff.

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Speaker 1: What are you excited about?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I love all my children, and I

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Speaker 3: have these one hundred companies, and you know, I never

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Speaker 3: knew that we'd get a new way to make steel

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Speaker 3: or cement or beef.

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Speaker 2: It's fair to say that if we can.

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Speaker 3: Get either nuclear fission or fusion to be safe and

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Speaker 3: broadly accepted and very economic because it's not whether dependent,

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Speaker 3: it would be very complementary to the large amount of

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Speaker 3: solar and wind that we're putting into our electric system.

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Speaker 2: And so I'm biased.

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Speaker 3: I'm a huge investor in both fission and fusion and

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Speaker 3: hoping that it comes in time. We can't count on it,

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Speaker 3: you know, fission it has been too expensive and fusion

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Speaker 3: doesn't exist yet.

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Speaker 1: But fusion fifteen years from now, Like, what's your I

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Speaker 1: know it's a guess at the moment.

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Speaker 3: Well, of the four companies I'm invested in, one of them,

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Speaker 3: Commonwealth Fusion, has a credible path. Things will have to

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Speaker 3: go well that in the late twenty thirties they'd be

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Speaker 3: making electricity and start to scale it up. So that's

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Speaker 3: an aspiration. But it's a great company, and we have

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Speaker 3: three others that aren't quite that early, but you know,

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Speaker 3: are within five to ten years of that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're in a strange place in the planet

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Speaker 1: right now because there's a lot of unknowns. It's AI,

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Speaker 1: it's technology, it's of course climate change. Do you find

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Speaker 1: leaders distracted or are they still putting climate change as some

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Speaker 1: of their top priorities.

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Speaker 3: Well, we can't have as our only priority. I mean,

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Speaker 3: you know, we still need to buy vaccines and dead nets,

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Speaker 3: and you know, when there's a war, you know that

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Speaker 3: properly demands attention and even the aid budget, you know,

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Speaker 3: for those refugees and everything.

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Speaker 2: It is.

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Speaker 3: I wish there hadn't been a pandemic or Ukraine war

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Speaker 3: or at least unrest. Those are going to take away

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Speaker 3: from the amount of tension we have on continuing to

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Speaker 3: make health progress and climate change, So you know, those

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Speaker 3: are our bad developments. If you'd only seen ten thousand

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Speaker 3: people come, you know, versus thirty five thousand last time,

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Speaker 3: you might have said, wow, we are really getting distracted. Instead,

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Speaker 3: twice as many came here, including a lot of the

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Speaker 3: big businesses. So the signs on scene are that while

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Speaker 3: we still have to deal with those things, and we

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Speaker 3: have limited resources so we have to spend them well,

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Speaker 3: that climate progress is moving ahead even though we won't.

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Speaker 2: We need our highest aspiration.

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Speaker 1: Beg One final question on AI do you how how

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Speaker 1: does that fit into your vision?

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Speaker 3: For well, AI is such a powerful technology, and you

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Speaker 3: know this recent advance where the AI can basically read

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Speaker 3: and write, that's going to affect every human activity. And

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Speaker 3: so we're using AI to find new drugs, We're using

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Speaker 3: AI to look at climate change, and so all of

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Speaker 3: our companies are going to move faster because AI helps

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Speaker 3: them explore different solutions and move a lot a lot better.

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Speaker 3: So you know, certainly for challenges like this, AI is

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Speaker 3: very much our friend.

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Speaker 1: Bill Gates, thank you so much,