Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – World conglomerate Bill Gates, who is the founder of Microsoft and a veteran philanthropist, once again spoke about new facts about the drivers of the 'apocalypse' on Earth in his blog last February. Unexpectedly, Indonesia was dragged into the conversation.
He revealed the fact that every year, activities on Earth produce 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases. As much as 7% comes from the production of fats and oils from animals and plants.
“To combat climate change, we have to move that number to zero,” he said, as quoted from his personal blog.
Furthermore, Gates is aware that plans to eliminate animal fat consumption for humans are unrealistic. The reason is, humans are dependent on animal fat for logical reasons.
Animal fats store nutrients and calories that humans need. However, there are ways to harvest fats without producing emissions, torturing animals, and producing harmful chemicals.
The solution, said Gates, has been found by a startup called 'Savor'. Gates is also one of the investors.
Savor creates fat from a process involving carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water. The compound is then heated and oxidized so that the acid components are separated which creates the fat formulation.
Gates claims the resulting fat has similar molecules found in milk, cheese, beef and vegetable oils.
Palm Oil and Indonesia
In addition to the environmentally damaging production of animal fats, Gates also highlighted a factor that creates a bigger impact, namely palm oil.
“Today, palm oil is the most widely consumed vegetable fat worldwide. Some of it is found in everyday foods such as cakes, instant noodles, coffee creamers, frozen foods, to makeup, body soap, toothpaste, detergent, deodorant, cat food, baby formula, and so on. In fact, palm oil is also used for biofuel and diesel engines,” he said.
Gates said the problem with palm oil is not how it is used, but how it is produced. Most varieties of palm oil native to West and Central Africa do not grow in many areas. They only thrive in places where the equator passes.
“This causes deforestation in equatorial areas to convert them into oil palm land,” said Gates.
This process has a negative impact on natural diversity and causes a severe blow to climate change. Forest burning creates a lot of emissions in the atmosphere and causes an increase in temperature.
“In 2018, the destruction that occurred in Malaysia and Indonesia alone was severe enough to contribute 1.4% of global emissions. That figure was greater than the entire state of California and almost as large as the aviation industry worldwide,” Gates explained.
Unfortunately, Gates admits that the role of palm oil is difficult to replace. This is because palm oil commodities are cheap, odorless and abundant.
“Palm oil is also the only vegetable oil with a nearly equal balance of saturated and unsaturated fats, which is why it's so versatile. While animal fats are a key ingredient in some foods, palm oil is a team player that can work to make almost any food and non-food item better,” Gates explains.
For those reasons, Gates said there are already companies trying to address them. One is C16 Biosciences, which is working to create an alternative to palm oil.
Since 2017, Gates said C16 has been developing products from wild yeast microbes using a fermentation process that produces no emissions at all.
Although chemically different from conventional palm oil, C16 oil contains the same fatty acids, so it can be used for similar applications.
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