Bill Gates: Carbon Tax Needed For Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050

Bill Gates is now on record that the United Nations is way behind the curve with climate change mitigation.

According to The Atlantic, “Gates is on a solo global lobbying campaign to press his species to accomplish something on a scale it has never attempted before.”

Species, indeed. He is calling for zero carbon emissions from the United States and China by 2050. That’s right, Zero Emissions. Furthermore, he is committing his vast personal fortune to make sure that it happens.

While even the United Nations concedes that a transition from coal and oil to natural gas would reduce emissions in the short run, Gates believes we should just leapfrog this clean source of energy, which is cost-effective and abundantly available, and go directly to alternative energy.

However, Gates is confused about what current alternative energy could achieve, hoping for some new technological inventions that do not exist yet. Were it not for massive government subsidies, the wind and solar industries would be miniscule. Neither are economical in their own right.

Nor will divestment solve the problem. According to Gates, “If you think divestment alone is a solution, I worry you’re taking whatever desire people have to solve this problem and kind of using up their idealism and energy on something that won’t emit less carbon—because only a few people in society are the owners of the equity of coal or oil companies.”

So to Gates, the real solution is to bet on non-existing technology just waiting to be discovered, if only enough money could be thrown at R&D. Where would all this money come from? Gates is blunt: “Without a substantial carbon tax, there’s no incentive for innovators or plant buyers to switch.”

His master R&D plan would include tax-payer funding generated by a “few percent” carbon tax on all energy consumption.

Gates compares this initiative to the drug industry:

“Well, the success of the United States in medical research is really incredible. I mean, it’s phenomenal. We spend $30 billion a year of government money, and the private sector goes out and comes up with new drugs. “

 For a man who made his fortune on the capitalist economic system, Gates has little appreciation for how the system works. Industry is is supposed to be competitive and market-driven. Gates’ plan is government-driven. To Gates, the private sector takes free government hand-outs and then goes out and comes up with new inventions that profit the private companies who were lucky enough to be in line in the first place.

Gates concludes, “So we have to have dramatic change here. It’s unprecedented to move this quickly, to change an infrastructure of this scale—it’s really unprecedented.

This is directly reminiscent of UNEP’s (UN Environmental Programme) definition of “Green Economy”:

“These investments, both public and private, provide the mechanism for the reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions, and for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production processes.”

That is, “reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions” to toss out Capitalism and Free Enterprise altogether while substituting Sustainable Development in its place.

While the stated goals of Sustainable Development are indeed lofty, the cost comes in handing over the reins of all production and all consumption to an unelected and unaccountable oligarchy who believe that they can make better decisions for humanity than those who make up humanity.

In the end, Bill Gates is hoping for a miracle: “And when you put all those requirements together, we need an energy miracle. That may make it seem too daunting to people, but in science, miracles are happening all the time.”

The real problem for Gates and his Sustainable Development cronies is that the vast majority of Americans are not willing to have their lives turned upside-down, their nation reconfigured and Free Enterprise replaced – based on some undefined miracle at the hand of science.

Yes, Mr. Gates, it is too daunting to us.