Billionaire philanthropist and investor Bill Gates made a clarion call for increased Republican support for climate change action, during a speech at the Climate Forward event in New York City.
Gates emphasized the importance of bipartisan backing for climate change mitigation and adaptation, stating that such measures require sustained support and investment from both the public and private sector, CNBC reported.
“Republicans for climate change action are gold,” said Gates.
Gates cited the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, which despite carrying numerous tax credits to boost the clean energy economy, failed to win any Republican votes in the House and Senate. Such a political divide, he noted, is echoed within the American public, with a Pew Research Center survey showing only 23% of Republicans considering climate change a major threat.
“The IRA is a very dramatic set of money to bootstrap key technologies, including into areas that most climate people don’t talk about,” Gates said.
The IRA includes tax credits to stimulate the development of clean hydrogen, long-duration energy storage, and technologies to capture and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, among others. Gates praised the IRA as a “fantastic climate bill.”
However, Gates highlighted the risk of these tax credits being repealed with a change in political control. He underscored the need for long-term investments in heavy equipment, manufacturing, and infrastructure-scale solutions, which take much longer than a single administration’s tenure in Washington D.C. to implement.
Gates affirmed the need for the U.S. to lead the way in developing and making new technologies accessible, to influence global emissions overwhelmingly produced by middle-income countries.
He also encouraged philanthropists with connections to Republicans to engage them in increasing their commitment to climate action, stating, “I think that’s extremely valuable.”
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Photo by Frederic Legrand – COMEO on Shutterstock
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