Overview
- Publishing a pre-COP30 essay, Gates set out three points: climate change is serious but not civilization-ending, temperature is an imperfect progress metric, and health and prosperity are the best defenses.
- He urged donors and policymakers to pivot from short-term temperature and emissions targets toward actions that maximize human welfare, citing Sri Lanka’s fertilizer ban and the long-term decline in disaster deaths as cautionary examples.
- Right-leaning outlets cast the memo as a recantation of past alarmism, and President Trump posted that he had won the “War on the Climate Change Hoax.”
- Coverage from The Observer stressed that Gates still views climate change as an extremely serious problem and highlighted his emphasis on business-driven innovation through Breakthrough Energy.
- Gates linked recent technological gains to improved outlooks, noting IEA projections for lower 2040 emissions, as debate continues over whether his approach dilutes near-term mitigation or redirects resources pragmatically ahead of talks in Belém.