We have been experiencing one of the most difficult periods in modern history. The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 2 million people, sickened millions more, devastated the global economy, and erased years of progress in fighting poverty, hunger, and other diseases. The only reason this crisis is not even worse is because the world—especially its scientists and researchers—came together quickly to fight the virus. Thanks to unprecedented levels of global scientific collaboration, the COVID-19 vaccines represent the fastest humanity has ever gone from identifying a new disease to immunizing against it.

As the world works to ensure that everyone can get vaccinated, nobody wants to think about the next crisis. But unfortunately, we do not have the luxury not to. As bad as the pandemic has been, climate change will be even worse if we do not start applying the same spirit of global collaboration right now to address it. Within decades, climate change impacts could kill nearly three times as many people per year as COVID did in 2020, and its economic costs will be as bad as having a COVID-sized pandemic every 10 years.

Climate change poses two distinct challenges. First, to mitigate its worst effects in the years to come, our global civilization needs to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. Given that the world currently emits about 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases a year, this might be the toughest task humanity has ever faced. But we can accomplish it if we start working toward that goal now. In his new book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, our co-chair Bill Gates lays out a comprehensive road map for reducing global emissions to net-zero and points to where additional innovation is needed to succeed.

That will be hard enough, but reaching net zero is only half the problem. Even if the world reduces its emissions to net-zero within the 30-year timeframe, some impacts are already locked in. Global temperature averages conceal, for example, the fact that sub-Saharan Africa will be hit harder and sooner by significant warming than much of the rest of the world. So we must also help vulnerable populations adapt to the climate changes that are happening now. This is our primary climate focus at the foundation, and we believe we can play a catalytic role in accelerating these necessary adaptation efforts.