Bill and Bono

The world today is a better place than it has ever been. For more people than ever before lives are better because of progress in science and technology and medicine. But many people, people who need improvements in their lives the most, are not touched by this progress. Also, these “bottom billion” will bear the consequences of the negative changes: “Climate change will have the most impact on those who have done least to cause it.”

How to reach them? Gates said companies have to “stretch the reach of market forces to bring the benefits of science and technology to everyone”. The process is tied to two great forces of human nature: self-interest and caring for others. These forces need to be harnessed to reach the bottom billion.

For companies, there are two motivations in this effort: to increase profits and recognition. Recognition enhances a company’s reputation and draws good people to work for it.

For instance, take Bono’s project, Red, whereby companies can associate with it by committing part of the revenue from their product to combat AIDS in Africa. Bono famously pulled off that initiative at Davos, pointing to what can be achieved amongst “the fat cats in the snow”. Or take Microsoft’s ongoing research in India to design software that would make PCs instantly usable by the semi-literate.

Gates said if you give people a chance to associate with a cause while buying products, they will respond.

This and other ways of including the poor as producers or as beneficiaries, he said, are more valuable than giving cash: “It takes brainpower to make lives better for the richest and dedicate some of it to those left behind.”

There is cynicism about such ideas, Gates conceded while announcing himself as an impatient optimist. But this is because many things are done under this label that do have much use.

And then there was Gore

Bono started the day much earlier, joking, “If anyone sees my band, don’t tell them I was up early.” He was in conversation with Al Gore on exploring ways of combining solutions to extreme poverty and the climate crisis. The two of them have worked together to find ways but for now, they are more definite about the acuteness of the problems.

Bono, who has striven to get the rich countries to cancel debt to the poorest countries and get drugs and assistance to the people of these countries, was critical of the G8 for not making good its commitment on aid.

Gore, former US vice president and joint winner of the last Nobel prize for peace for raising awareness on climate change, said these are two issues that demand moral commitment from this generation.

Bono conveyed the problems associated in marrying solutions like this: “(Meeting Al Gore) is like meeting an Irish priest in the supermarket and starting to confess your sins. ‘Father, I’m not just a noise polluter, but a diesel sucking, methane producing sinner.’ And Father Al asks me: ‘Will you try to kick the habit, my son?’ I say, ‘Oil has been good to me’.”

The point: “Going cold turkey on carbon emissions is dangerous.” The turbulence on the stockmarkets, he said, shows prosperity is more precarious than we think. He believes in moving away slowly. If Al Gore is right about the emergency solutions the climate crisis requires, Bono said he’d have to rethink some of his views. These emergency solutions can have grave consequences for the developing world. Take aviation, he said. It is critical for trade for landlocked countries. “Things like this have made me a little nervous.”

But, he noted, there is also the fact that the brunt of the climate crisis will be felt in the developing world.