Copyright Newsweek
Just weeks before world leaders gather for major climate negotiations, Bill Gates is sending a new message that reduces the emphasis on the threat from climate change and encourages more focus on development in poor nations. "Climate change is not the biggest threat to the lives and livelihoods of people in poor countries, and it won’t be in the future," Gates wrote in an essay published Tuesday titled “Three Tough Truths About Climate.” Gates argued that a "doomsday" outlook is "causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals," and he said that diverts resources from things that can help us better adapt to a warming world. The essay carries a subtitle: “What I want everyone at COP30 to know.” The upcoming COP30 United Nations climate talks in Brazil, Gates wrote, present "a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives." The Microsoft founder is not only among the world’s 20 richest people, but he is also a major figure in global health philanthropy through the Gates Foundation and in clean energy business thanks to his Breakthrough Energy investment group. His essay drew sharp criticism from a leading climate scientist and praise from a controversial figure in climate policy debates. “I think it's great. I think it's also brave,” political scientist Bjorn Lomborg said of Gates’ essay. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and is well-known for his contrarian stance that addressing climate change is less important than other threats humanity faces. “It's just not what's going to matter most to the world's poor,” Lomborg told Newsweek. The Gates essay hews closely to Lomborg’s views, and Lomborg added that the Gates Foundation has funded some of the Copenhagen Consensus Center’s work. “I've met with Mr. Gates himself several times,” Lomborg said. “He's read some of my stuff.” But Lomborg stopped short of taking credit for Gates’ new views. Climate scientist and author Michael Mann, however, said Gates’ “tough truths” sound to him more like “soft denial” of climate science. “This is horrifying,” Mann told Newsweek via email after reading the Gates essay. Mann, a presidential distinguished professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, said Gates’ essay “promotes seemingly every soft denialist trope.” Mann said soft denial acknowledges that climate change is real but dismisses the urgency of climate action by arguing that it is too expensive or a distraction from other pressing needs. “Actual expert assessments demonstrate that it represents an existential threat, exacerbating global security threats, threatening water and food supplies, leading to massive damage,” Mann said. He also countered Gates’ argument that near-term use of fossil fuel energy is better for the world’s poor. “The poor are the most harmed by the devastating climate impacts we’re already experiencing,” Mann said. “It’s like a game of soft climate denial bingo.” “His wrong-headed pronouncements about climate change and renewable energy have been extremely damaging, providing credibility for bad actors to talk down the promise of decarbonization and suggest far riskier ‘techno-fixes’ like geoengineering,” Mann said. Gates’ essay marks a sharp change in tone from just a few years ago when he published his book on climate change “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” Gates has also pulled back from climate advocacy this year, closing Breakthrough Energy’s policy operations, laying off staff and reducing the group’s grants. Gates anticipated the criticism in his essay, saying “I know that some climate advocates will disagree with me,” and made clear that he is not abandoning the issue. “Climate change is a very important problem. It needs to be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition,” Gates wrote. “Every tenth of a degree of heating that we prevent is hugely beneficial because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people’s lives.”
