[서울=뉴스핌] Reporter Won-jin Choi = Microsoft founder Bill Gates, chairman of the Bill and Merlinda Gates Foundation’s new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need) emphasized that in order to respond to climate change, carbon dioxide emissions should be zero (0).
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| Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. 2020.10.07 [사진=로이터 뉴스핌] |
According to the British Daily Guardian on the 13th (local time), Chairman Gates wrote that the amount of greenhouse gases emitted every year around the world is about 5.1 billion tons
He said that the climate was like a bathtub, and likened to a greenhouse gas, water slowly filling the bathtub. He argued that in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change and to stop further change, people must stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and achieve zero emissions.
It is difficult to reduce emissions to zero. Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, population movement was reduced due to economic activities such as aircraft and automobile operations, but annual greenhouse gas emissions decreased by only 5% to about 4.8 billion to 4.9 billion tons.
The author said that zero greenhouse gas emissions requires innovation. It is said that a zero-emission plan should be sought by using different uses of greenhouse gases, such as converting greenhouse gases into electricity production or using them for crop farming.
The United States produces about 96 million tons of cement annually. Cement, the main material of concrete, generates carbon dioxide during burning at high temperatures. Accordingly, the technology of recycling carbon dioxide and injecting it into cement is in the spotlight.
Carboncure is a Canadian startup that captures and injects carbon dioxide generated from other industries into the concrete manufacturing process, and has dozens of customers including LinkedIn and McDonald’s. It is still estimated that this technology can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10% per year.
Although not realized, a more theoretical approach is to make cement from seawater and captured carbon dioxide. Several experts predict that this could ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% per year.
The authors say that the next decade should be focused on technologies, policies, and market structures that will lead the way to zero greenhouse gases by 2050.