When I recently interviewed Bill Gates about his new book on global warming, I didn’t expect him to use Miami as his first example of what may become a climate change “catastrophe.”
But that’s exactly what he did.
“There will be places near the ocean [that] the sea-level rise will completely wipe out,” Gates told me. “You know, like Miami won’t look anything like it does today. Those beaches will be all gone.”
Since I live in Miami Beach, in a building close to the ocean, I immediately asked him how soon he expects that to happen.
“Well, it’s fairly gradual, it gets worse every year. You know already in Miami you have periods where the water is coming up when you get the right weather conditions. And so, every year, the ocean will just get higher and higher. And by the end of the century, that’s very, very dramatic,” he told me.
“I love the beaches in Miami, you know, biking, walking, it’s so beautiful, and all the energy of people there,” he added. “And I think, wow, that won’t be there. You know, it’s kind of a sad thing. It’s not the highest on the list of bad things from climate change, but it makes it something that we can relate to.”
Gates’ new book, “How to avoid a climate disaster,” makes dire predictions not just for Miami, but also for the world.
There will be increasingly stronger hurricanes, floods, wildfires and extreme droughts, mass migrations, economic crises and deaths from natural disasters. By 2050, climate change is likely to be just as deadly as COVID-19, and by 2100 it could be five times as deadly, he says.
Unless we dramatically increase efforts to reduce climate change — beyond the ambitious gas-emission reduction goals of the 190-country Paris Climate Change Accord — the world faces a “climate disaster,” Gates says.
Expanding current sources of green energy, such as wind and solar, will not suffice, he says. That’s because these energy sources are intermittent. The wind doesn’t always blow. The sun doesn’t always shine. And we have not yet invented affordable batteries that can store enough clean energies.
In addition, the Paris Accord’s goals are too modest to solve the problem, Gates says, adding that the only sensible goal is to reduce emissions to near zero by 2050.
He compares existing global agreements to reduce the effects of climate change to a bathtub that is slowly filling up with water: Even if you slow the flow to a trickle, the tub eventually will overflow.
When I asked him what will happen in countries such as Mexico, which is investing oil refineries, Gates said that electric cars are likely to dominate the market in 10 or 15 years and, “Countries will have to move away from expecting to make lots of money from selling oil or natural gas.”
“That will be a challenge for the Middle East, Russia, Nigeria and Mexico,” he said. “But 30 years hopefully is enough time to ship those (oil-related) jobs into other areas.”
Most climate experts disagree with the notion that Miami will soon disappear under water anytime soon (though, to be fair, Gates was referring only to Miami’s beaches, and said that they may vanish by the year 2100.)
What’s going to happen, if nothing dramatic is done, is that Miami will have to build much more expensive water pumps, and residents will have to pay more real estate taxes.
In that scenario, Miami — like other coastal areas in Florida — may become a place where only the ultra-rich will be able to live, some climate experts predict. Like Venice, Italy, which is regularly swamped with floodwaters and is one of Italy’s most high-priced cities, Miami’s real estate would be among the most expensive in the United States, they say.
I agree that Miami won’t disappear anytime soon, nor will its real-estate prices plummet, though I wonder about the future of its beaches. Gates is right in warning that current efforts to control global warming are not enough, and that the longer we wait to fix the climate problem, the more costly it will be.
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This story was originally published February 19, 2021 5:29 PM.