The liberal blog ThinkProgress is not happy with Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s opposition to taxing carbon dioxide emissions, even though the Washington billionaire has started an organization to push green energy technology.
Joe Romm tore into Gates’s carbon tax remarks Monday, arguing Gates is wrong to oppose a carbon tax and is also wrong on a whole host of other issues related to global warming.
“Gates is just wrong about everything here,” wrote Romm, a climate scientist who is the founding editor of the ThingProgress global warming section. ”He is wrong that energy miracles are needed by the industrialized countries to achieve CO2 levels in 2050 consistent with beating the 2°C target.”
Gates told Technology Review a carbon tax was not right for America, and he stressed the need for “energy miracles” to wean the world of fossil fuels in an interview with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Technology Review in April.
“Some countries will do a pure carbon tax, and there’s a certain beauty to doing it that way, but the consensus that I think people will reach here in the U.S. will be to focus more on supply side,” Gates said. “On the demand side, rich nations have invested literally hundreds of billions, but on the supply side, if you put aside China, nobody’s really substantially increased their energy R&D budget over these last 15 years.”
“The answer to your question is: yes, we need lots of work on the demand side,” he said. “But when you click on the supply side and see what we’ve done you’d be very disappointed, even though, in terms of billions of dollars needed, it’s not nearly as much. It’s surprising how little’s been done.”
Gates joined with other wealthy individuals last year to create the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. The group was created to channel investment into green energy technologies and lobby the government to fund more research and development for things like solar, wind and even clean coal.
“By this summer, we’ll have some of the key people and will have pulled together the investment documents, and then we’ll be able to go to not only individuals who are willing to commit based on knowing me and trusting this thing would be structured well, but also the institutions,” Gates said.
But Romm disagreed with his focus on the “supply side” of the energy equation, rather than the “demand side” — which involves energy efficiency programs and other ways to cajole people into using less energy.
“He is wrong that achieving that target requires focusing on R&D rather than deployment. He is wrong that there is some sort of consensus to that effect,” Romm wrote. “He is wrong that a carbon tax isn’t important in achieving the rapid reduction the rich countries need. He is wrong to make it seem like boosting energy efficiency is not as vital a strategy as reducing carbon intensity.”
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.