Bill Gates has called for a “strategic pivot” in the fight against climate change, arguing that the world should focus less on limiting temperature rises and more on tackling poverty and disease. In a blog post on his Gates Notes website, the Microsoft co-founder criticised a “doomsday view” that he said places too much emphasis on near-term emissions goals.
His comments come a day after the UN confirmed that the world has missed the 1.5C global heating target, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres warning of “devastating consequences”. Gates, however, wrote that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” and that people will be able to “live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future”.
Gates said the upcoming Cop30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, was “a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives”. He argued that for the world’s poorest, the biggest threats remain poverty and disease, not climate change, and that resources should be directed where they have the greatest impact.
His stance contrasts sharply with that of Guterres, who told the Guardian and Sumaúma that the world must “recognise our failure” and urgently cut emissions to avoid tipping points such as the Amazon rainforest turning into savannah. Guterres insisted that “it is absolutely indispensable to change course” to limit the overshoot above 1.5C.
