Bill Gates warns climate change crisis could be worse than COVID-19 pandemic
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He said: "By 2060, climate change could be just as deadly as COVID-19, and by 2100 it could be five times as deadly."
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been a constant critic of the climate change crisis. Recently, in his blog, he warned that while COVID-19 is "awful" but the climate change crisis could be even worse.
He urged everyone to deal with climate change quickly to avoid a climate disaster.
"If you want to understand the kind of damage that climate change will inflict, look at COVID-19 and spread the pain out over a much longer period of time," Gates wrote on his blog. "The loss of life and economic misery caused by this pandemic are on par with what will happen regularly if we do not eliminate the world's carbon emissions."
According to Gates, 14 per 100,000 people died due to COVID-19 (based on the current number of deaths due to virus) and said that the global mortality rate could shoot up to 73 deaths per 100,000 if the temperatures continue to rise for the next 40 years.
He said: "By 2060, climate change could be just as deadly as COVID-19, and by 2100 it could be five times as deadly."
Economic damage from climate change would be the equivalent of having a COVID-19 pandemic every decade, he added.
The year 2020 has witnessed a decline in greenhouse gases due to global-level lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic that brought everyone to a standstill, however, Gates said that it'll likely only amount to a reduction of 8 per cent in total. The reduction was caused due to coronavirus lockdowns and not due to any solutions, he said.
"This is not a situation that anyone would want to continue," Gates said. "In addition, these reductions are being achieved at, literally, the greatest possible cost."