Gates Warns ‘Market Forces’ Not Enough to Address Climate Change

Bill Gates is warning that the market alone cannot solve climate change, just as President Donald Trump pulls the US out of key global climate organizations.

“Government policies in rich countries are still critical because unless innovations reach scale, the costs won’t come down and we won’t achieve the impact we need,” the billionaire founder of Microsoft Corp. wrote in his annual lookahead letter released on Friday.

According to Gates, who founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures to bankroll climate-focused startups, “market forces do not properly incentivize the creation of technologies to reduce climate-related emissions” at a time when carbon pollution isn’t ...