Mint Visionaries | Poor will suffer most due to climate change, says Bill Gates

Mint Visionaries is a series of conversations with people who are inspiring a new future. Mint kicked off the first conversation with Bill Gates, co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mr Gates was in conversation with Rishad Premji, chairman, Wipro Ltd., on a topic very close to his heart: "Technology for Social Inclusion". Mint chose this theme because it resonates with the idea of new India. Mr Gates says the world has to accelerate innovation to mitigate risk of climate change.

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant delivered the keynote address at the Mint Visionaries' launch event in New Delhi. "India cannot afford to be incremental. All the challenges in the world are in India. We are finding solutions not just for India but for the 7.5 billion people in the world who will move from poverty to middle class," said Kant.

Here are the highlights from the conversation between Bill Gates and Rishad Premji:

-"One thing that will help India in a big way is to get rid of malnutrition," said Bill Gates

-Bill Gates on social media: In the past we all read the same newspaper. Today, because of targeting, political ads can incense people against the 'other'. There may be a need to ban 'micro-targeting' for political advertising.

-Amitabh Kant joins the conversation and says the next big transformation that will happen in India is health identifier when everyone will have a health card.

-Bill Gates on Artificial Intelligence: AI can give us some miracle tools, impact of AI on jobs is an important issue.

-"Technology can free up our time but can't tell us what we should do with that free time," says Gates.

-Bill Gates on EVs: Electric cars in the next 10-15 years will outcompete gasoline cars without subsidy. We have to accelerate innovation which won’t come if we don’t step in

-Bill Gates says he's writing a book on climate change and that it should be out in June 2020.

-Bill Gates: Have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in nuclear plants. Not sure if the world will accept nuclear energy but need to pursue it and other energy sources.

-Bill Gates: World needs new technology that will let us generate energy without greenhouse gas emissions.

-"As you heat the world up, mosquitoes can live in higher altitude. We should have enough tools to get rid of malaria. It is an example of something that makes things worse," says Gates.

-Bill Gates on challenges of climate change: "Climate change makes poor farmers suffer. Their crop will fail every three years as against earlier timeline of 7-8 years."

-The co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says he didn't expect to hear Bihar CM Nitish Kumar talk about climate change when they met earlier on Sunday.

-"Energy is a lot harder than software. With energy, it's the physical economy, it has to be reliable," says Gates.

-"We need to pursue nuclear energy, we also need geothermal, other forms of energy," says Gates.

-"Due to climate change those who suffer the most will be the poor," says the Microsoft co-founder.

-"You can't leave out middle income countries because a lot of emissions are going to come out of those countries," says Gates

-"Most of the energy we use come from coal or gas, gasoline. The work on mitigation requires immense innovation. We have a lot of inventions that need to be made. For example, steel and cement use a lot of energy," says Gates when Premji asked him about climate change.

Here are the highlights from Kant's keynote address:

-"Given India's unique diversities, India's challenges are unique," says NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant in his keynote speech.

-"At NITI Aayog, we are tracking aspirational districts. We are now measuring change and putting data in public domain. If you are able to transform the 115 districts in India, we can transform India's growth trajectory. By tracking data, we have brought in a lot of data. Today, a bank account can be opened in less than a minute through the use of biometrics. Our mobile data consumption is more than US and China put together. India has thrown up a vast amount of data. The new Ayushman Bharat scheme is cashless and paperless. Ayushman Bharat covers 500 million people which is more than the population of US, Europe and Mexico put together, which makes it the biggest health insurance scheme in the world," says Kant.

-"We (India) have brought in a revolution and it is the revolution of technology," says Kant.

"India's mobile data consumption is more than US and China put together," says Kant.