Since moving to his home in 2006, a converted barn surrounded by 30 acres in the Shropshire pastureland, he and his wife Jacqui Morrish have gone to great lengths to reduce their family's emissions, slashing them in the last two years by a staggering 87%.
He wants to see carbon emissions slashed by 80%.
It's the Holy Grail of climate change — reducing fossil-fuel emissions without slashing the growth needed to lift billions of the world's people out of poverty. .
Emission-slashing pledges by countries including the United States have experts questioning if New Zealand's recently-announced climate change target is as fair and ambitious as it was described to be.
In late June, her ministry convened 200 officials from German states and municipalities to develop a strategy for how to move from a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions to the far more ambitious goal of slashing emissions by 90% by 2050.
The government's independent Climate Change Authority recommended emissions be slashed between 45% to 65% by 2030, based on 2005 levels.
Even if emissions are slashed, DeConto said, there remains a 10% chance that sea level will rise significantly.
He has also announced an intensified exploitation in America of oil and natural gas, the principal sources of such emissions, and slashed the budget for research into renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal and biomass).
Gates has long made the argument that "today's tools" are incapable of slashing emissions.
The US is second only to China in coal use, and that is why Obama's plan focuses on slashing emissions from power stations.
Recent reports warning of temperatures rising 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit this century, including the draft National Climate Assessment, confirm the urgency of slashing emissions.
