Why has Bill Gates, of all people, decided to break rank on climate change? The Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist wrote earlier this week on his Gates Notes website, challenging what he called the “doomsday view of climate change.” While acknowledging that climate change would have “serious consequences” for some, he maintained that “it will not lead to humanity’s demise.” Rather, for the vast majority of the planet, “the biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.” Too much focus on climate is “diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.”
Gates’s intervention might have been sparked by the United Nations’ latest apocalyptic proclamation, ahead of COP30 next month. In a statement on Monday, UN Secretary General António Guterres lamented the world’s failure to stop the average global surface temperature from rising by 1.5C—something that he believes will now have “devastating consequences” for humanity. As a result of this ‘overshoot,’ Guterres has warned that the Amazon rainforest could be turned into a savannah. “That is a real risk if we don’t change course and if we don’t make a dramatic decrease of emissions as soon as possible,” he said.
Guterres firmly falls into the “doomsday” camp of green acolytes. He believes that climate change (or the ‘climate crisis,’ as he would likely insist on calling it) will end life on Earth as we know it. All of humanity will be engulfed in hellfire. “The era of global warming has ended,” he declared in 2023, “the era of global boiling has arrived.” The year before, he told the world that “we are in the fight of our lives and we are losing.” He thundered: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” He has also, unsurprisingly, hinted that high-polluting nations have an obligation to address “loss and damage” (read: climate reparations) to poorer countries.
Incredibly, Guterres is not even an extreme outlier in the world of climate activism. These people really do believe that the apocalypse is just around the corner and, within a few decades, human life on this planet will be wiped out. This hysterical belief is why increasing numbers of young people are refusing to reproduce, and why children are reporting feeling paralysed by ‘climate anxiety.’
Naturally, Gates’s defection from climate catastrophism has provoked outcry from the true believers. Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, accused Gates of “setting up a false dichotomy,” as reported in the New York Times, “that pits efforts to tackle climate change against foreign aid for the poor.” Climatologist Michael Mann similarly called Gates “deeply misguided on climate,” while writer David Callahan suggested that Gates’s comments were the result of “not wanting to be a target of the Trump administration.”
What none of them can deny, however, is that Gates is certainly no anti-science crank. Via the Gates Foundation, he has poured billions into projects combatting climate change—including funding the development of stress-resilient strains of crops and helping farmers in Africa and South Asia to adapt to changing weather. In 2015, he founded Breakthrough Energy, an organisation with the aim of creating new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emission and facilitate the more efficient use of renewable energies. And just four years ago, he penned a book titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, which proposed various technological innovations that would be needed to feasibly reach Net Zero and reduce human impact on climate.
The issue with Gates, as far as the green activists are concerned, is that he was always far too optimistic. Coming from a computing background, he believes that many of humanity’s problems could be solved by technology. Climate change in particular could be slowed or even reversed by existing or yet-to-be-invented tech. This is why the focus of his climate-related projects is typically innovation (developing new ways to harness clean energy, for example, or backing nuclear research), rather than attempting to socially engineer people into living more ‘sustainable’ lives.
Net Zero fanatics and climate alarmists hate this. As Oppenheimer of Princeton asked: “Can we truly live in a technological bubble? Do we want to?” The answer for most of them is a resounding “no.” They would prefer to impose rules and restrictions to limit the footprint of the human race, instead of finding ways that we can flourish and take up space. There is an impulse to restrict everyday life—banning short-haul flights, floating meat taxes, blocking reliable sources of energy—more than there is a drive to solve the problems they claim to be so concerned about. Even if, tomorrow, scientists invented some magical machine to solve climate change forever, activists would refuse to use it.
That’s because environmentalism has turned into a quasi-religion for these people. The satisfaction they get from self-flagellating in the name of Mother Gaia far outweighs any impulse they might have to actually improve human life on this planet. Gates told reporters after writing his memo this week, that he would “let the temperature go up 0.1 degree to get rid of malaria.” The activists clutched their pearls at this, of course. But, as Gates went on to say, “people don’t understand the suffering that exists today.” That is what progress really means—improving life for as many people as possible, not forcing the developed world to adopt a lower quality of life in the name of ‘saving’ the planet.
Good on Bill Gates for rejecting the climate cult of despair. He’s right that our priority should be lifting our fellow men out of poverty, curing deadly diseases, and facilitating human flourishing across the globe—not punishing those of us who are fortunate enough to have reaped the benefits of fossil-fuel-powered development. If that offends the doom merchants, so be it. But the future belongs to those who choose growth over managed decline.
Bill Gates Is Right—Climate Change Isn’t the End of the World
Bill Gates
European Union – Source: European Parliament 2025
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Why has Bill Gates, of all people, decided to break rank on climate change? The Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist wrote earlier this week on his Gates Notes website, challenging what he called the “doomsday view of climate change.” While acknowledging that climate change would have “serious consequences” for some, he maintained that “it will not lead to humanity’s demise.” Rather, for the vast majority of the planet, “the biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.” Too much focus on climate is “diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.”
Gates’s intervention might have been sparked by the United Nations’ latest apocalyptic proclamation, ahead of COP30 next month. In a statement on Monday, UN Secretary General António Guterres lamented the world’s failure to stop the average global surface temperature from rising by 1.5C—something that he believes will now have “devastating consequences” for humanity. As a result of this ‘overshoot,’ Guterres has warned that the Amazon rainforest could be turned into a savannah. “That is a real risk if we don’t change course and if we don’t make a dramatic decrease of emissions as soon as possible,” he said.
Guterres firmly falls into the “doomsday” camp of green acolytes. He believes that climate change (or the ‘climate crisis,’ as he would likely insist on calling it) will end life on Earth as we know it. All of humanity will be engulfed in hellfire. “The era of global warming has ended,” he declared in 2023, “the era of global boiling has arrived.” The year before, he told the world that “we are in the fight of our lives and we are losing.” He thundered: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” He has also, unsurprisingly, hinted that high-polluting nations have an obligation to address “loss and damage” (read: climate reparations) to poorer countries.
Incredibly, Guterres is not even an extreme outlier in the world of climate activism. These people really do believe that the apocalypse is just around the corner and, within a few decades, human life on this planet will be wiped out. This hysterical belief is why increasing numbers of young people are refusing to reproduce, and why children are reporting feeling paralysed by ‘climate anxiety.’
Naturally, Gates’s defection from climate catastrophism has provoked outcry from the true believers. Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, accused Gates of “setting up a false dichotomy,” as reported in the New York Times, “that pits efforts to tackle climate change against foreign aid for the poor.” Climatologist Michael Mann similarly called Gates “deeply misguided on climate,” while writer David Callahan suggested that Gates’s comments were the result of “not wanting to be a target of the Trump administration.”
What none of them can deny, however, is that Gates is certainly no anti-science crank. Via the Gates Foundation, he has poured billions into projects combatting climate change—including funding the development of stress-resilient strains of crops and helping farmers in Africa and South Asia to adapt to changing weather. In 2015, he founded Breakthrough Energy, an organisation with the aim of creating new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emission and facilitate the more efficient use of renewable energies. And just four years ago, he penned a book titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, which proposed various technological innovations that would be needed to feasibly reach Net Zero and reduce human impact on climate.
The issue with Gates, as far as the green activists are concerned, is that he was always far too optimistic. Coming from a computing background, he believes that many of humanity’s problems could be solved by technology. Climate change in particular could be slowed or even reversed by existing or yet-to-be-invented tech. This is why the focus of his climate-related projects is typically innovation (developing new ways to harness clean energy, for example, or backing nuclear research), rather than attempting to socially engineer people into living more ‘sustainable’ lives.
Net Zero fanatics and climate alarmists hate this. As Oppenheimer of Princeton asked: “Can we truly live in a technological bubble? Do we want to?” The answer for most of them is a resounding “no.” They would prefer to impose rules and restrictions to limit the footprint of the human race, instead of finding ways that we can flourish and take up space. There is an impulse to restrict everyday life—banning short-haul flights, floating meat taxes, blocking reliable sources of energy—more than there is a drive to solve the problems they claim to be so concerned about. Even if, tomorrow, scientists invented some magical machine to solve climate change forever, activists would refuse to use it.
That’s because environmentalism has turned into a quasi-religion for these people. The satisfaction they get from self-flagellating in the name of Mother Gaia far outweighs any impulse they might have to actually improve human life on this planet. Gates told reporters after writing his memo this week, that he would “let the temperature go up 0.1 degree to get rid of malaria.” The activists clutched their pearls at this, of course. But, as Gates went on to say, “people don’t understand the suffering that exists today.” That is what progress really means—improving life for as many people as possible, not forcing the developed world to adopt a lower quality of life in the name of ‘saving’ the planet.
Good on Bill Gates for rejecting the climate cult of despair. He’s right that our priority should be lifting our fellow men out of poverty, curing deadly diseases, and facilitating human flourishing across the globe—not punishing those of us who are fortunate enough to have reaped the benefits of fossil-fuel-powered development. If that offends the doom merchants, so be it. But the future belongs to those who choose growth over managed decline.
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