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Coronavirus

15th Feb 2021

Bill Gates believes ending the coronavirus pandemic is ‘very, very easy’ compared to preventing climate change

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates believes ending the coronavirus pandemic will be 'very, very easy' compared to preventing climate change

Alex Roberts

“We’ve never made a transition like we’re talking about doing in the next 30 years. There is no precedent for this.”

Bill Gates believes ending the coronavirus pandemic will be “very, very easy” compared to preventing climate change.

Microsoft co-founder Gates has just published a new book on the emergency of climate change, in which he claims mankind needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emission to zero.

Currently, 51 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses are pumped into the Earth’s atmosphere each year. This needs to change in order to prevent catastrophe, according to the world’s forth-richest man.

In an interview with the BBC, Gates said: “We’ve never made a transition like we’re talking about doing in the next 30 years. There is no precedent for this.”

Bill Gates has invested $1.75 (£1.3) billion towards the global fight against coronavirus, which includes support for some vaccine manufacturers. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

Formerly the world’s richest man, Gates believes the world’s largest and most productive industries will need to “de-carbonise” in order to protect the planet. But for sectors such as steel and the transport industry, there is no method currently in place to achieve this.

Gates added that putting a stop to climate change would be “the most amazing thing humanity has ever done”.

The 65-year-old has recently hit back at conspiracies posted on social media claiming he had some kind of sinister involvement in the spread of coronavirus.

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the philanthropist has been the subject of spurious claims falsely accusing him of sinister involvement in the handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

In a video posted by Reuters, Gates said the conspiracies likely spread due to a combination of a global pandemic and the growing influence of social media.

“The presence of social media plus a pandemic is a combination that’s never been tried before.

“Nobody would have predicted that I and Dr. Fauci would be so prominent in evil theories about ‘Did we create the pandemic?’ or ‘Are we trying to profit from it?'”

Gates said he was surprised by the number of false claims posted online about him and Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert currently serving as Chief Medical Adviser to the US President.

“There are millions of messages out there where my name or Dr. Fauci’s name is used. But do people really believe that stuff?”

Also in this recent interview with the BBC, Gates laughed off the spurious concept of planting a microchip inside the human brain via the Covid-19 vaccine.

“Why would I want to track people? You know, I’m just not that interested in where people are going.”