Gates argued that it is important to bring down carbon dioxide

(CO2) emissions, from our current energy usage, to zero, so as to

prevent further climate change and global warming. He used
deductive reasoning to prove his point: by illustrating CO2
emissions in the form of an equation: where it equals to the
product of population, services, energy of these services and the
CO2 released per unit energy used. If any of these factors is
equivalent to zero, it will thus lead to zero CO2 emissions. Hence,
it will help solve the main problem of climate change. However, the
underlying assumption of the premise is that CO2 is the sole
contributing factor of climate change, which is largely true.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) Synthesis report (2007 p.36), it is stated that CO2 from
fossil fuel usage is the largest contributing factor (56.6%) for
greenhouse gases (GHG), which causes the increase in global
temperature. The official website of the United States
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also stated that CO2 takes
up the majority of global GHG emissions (approximately 35000 out
of 46000 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent). Since CO2
contributes a very big part in GHG, it is safe to assume that by
reducing CO2 emissions, global GHG emissions will be greatly
reduced and this will prevent further climate degradation from
global warming to a large extent. As both premises are true, it
therefore leads to the construction of a valid argument by Gates.
References
Bernstein, L., Bosch, P., Canziani, O., Chen, Z., Christ, R.,
Davidson, O. & Yohe, G. (2008).
Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report: An Assessment of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2014). Global
Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Retrieved September 9, 2014, from
United States Environmental Protection Agency:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/globalghg-emissions.html