Climate change won’t end civilization: Bill Gates

Former CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates enters the stage during the Clinton Global Initiative, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise,” billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has argued in a long memo calling for a proportionate and pragmatic approach to tackling human-caused global warming.

The missive was published late Monday, days ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil. Gates praised the meeting’s focus on climate adaptation and human development.

The Microsoft founder, a major backer of green technologies through his Breakthrough Energy organization, acknowledged that climate change will have “serious consequences” but added: “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”

He said he knew some climate advocates would disagree and call him a hypocrite because of his carbon footprint, which he said he fully offsets with “legitimate” carbon credits.

Gates outlined his “Three tough truths about climate:” climate change will not end civilization, temperature is not the best measure of progress, health and prosperity are the strongest defenses against a warming world.

While the planet is dangerously off course in meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting long-term warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, Gates argued that rather than fixating on the precise figure, the world should recognize progress in cutting emissions.

For most of the world’s poor, he added, poverty and disease remain the more pressing problems.

“Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries,” he said.

That means, for example, less focus on limiting extremely hot and cold days, and more on ensuring “fewer people live in poverty and poor health so that extreme weather isn’t such a threat to them.”

Looking ahead, Gates said a key climate strategy should be to reduce the so-called green premium -- the cost difference between clean and dirty ways of doing something -- to zero for materials such as cement, steel, and jet fuel.

He compared the memo to one he wrote at Microsoft 30 years ago urging the company to put the internet at the heart of everything it did. Likewise, he said, the climate community needs a “strategic pivot” at COP30 and beyond.

“Prioritize the things that have the greatest impact on human welfare,” he said.