By David Goldman, CNN
Bill Gates. Photo: AFP / Justin Tallis
In a stunning and significant pushback to the "doomsday" climate activist community, Bill Gates, a leading proponent for carbon emissions reductions, published a remarkable essay Wednesday (NZT) that argued resources must be shifted away from the battle against climate change.
Instead, Gates argued, the world's philanthropists must increase their investment in other efforts aimed at preventing disease and hunger.
Climate change is not going to wipe out humanity, he argued, and past efforts that strive for achieving zero carbon emissions have made real progress. But Gates said that past investments fighting climate change have been misplaced, and too much good money has been put into expensive and questionable efforts.
Although Gates said investment to battle climate change must continue, he argued that US President Donald Trump's cuts to USAID threaten a more urgent problem, inflicting potentially lasting global damage to the fight against famine and life-threatening preventable sickness.
"Climate change, disease, and poverty are all major problems," Gates wrote. "We should deal with them in proportion to the suffering they cause."
The Trump administration's funding cuts, Gates argues, necessitate an immediate and larger focus on investment and resources to support those abandoned efforts.
"Although climate change will have serious consequences - particularly for people in the poorest countries - it will not lead to humanity's demise," Gates wrote. "This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives. Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world's poorest countries."
Gates' shocking essay comes ahead of next month's COP30, a global summit focused on battling climate change.
The Trump administration eliminated USAID, an international aid organisation that supplied foreign countries with $8 billion (NZ$13.8b) in annual support to provide food and medicine to people who otherwise lack access to those life-saving necessities.
Gates denied his new position represents a reversal from his past stances. He said in Tuesday's essay that the world must continue to support its past efforts to achieve zero carbon emissions.
However, Gates told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview Tuesday that pulling back from climate investment was a "huge disappointment," albeit a necessary one. It also represents a stark contrast from where Gates had been focusing his efforts and philanthropy, including clean-energy businesses and lobby shops - and a turn from Gates' tone from just a couple years ago.
In a 2023 since-removed Breakthrough Energy essay, for example, Gates noted that most people around the world are struggling with the effects of climate change - a feeling that can be "overwhelming" and necessitates a response with "unprecedented" scale and speed.
Some critics argue that Gates' shift represents a false dichotomy: A significant amount of suffering that Gates now said was a priority was directly or indirectly a result of climate change.
"Humans are resilient, and while billion-dollar disasters will become more frequent and devastating, humans will not be wiped from the face of the Earth," Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Centre, which studies extreme weather and climate change, told CNN. "However ... investment needs to continue to focus on curing the disease (emissions of heat-trapping gases) while also treating the symptoms, which include improving health and hunger, bolstering infrastructure, and preserving ecosystems."
Others believe Gates is missing the broader point.
"There is no greater threat to developing nations than the climate crisis," said Michael Mann, director, Penn Centre for Science, Sustainability & the Media. "He's got this all backwards."
-CNN
