After years of predicting a global warming doomsday scenario, Bill Gates is seemingly walking back those views and prioritizing innovation above alarmism.
Earlier this week, Gates released “Three Tough Truths About Climate,” a memo that marked a striking departure from his previous advocacy. He wrote that ultimately global warming “will not lead to humanity’s demise” and suggested “we should measure success by our impact on human welfare more than our impact on the global temperature.”
Such sentiments mark a dramatic change from his 2021 book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” It predicted that “we are going to have a catastrophic warming of the planet” if we don’t reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
Climate tech entrepreneurs and investors are cheering Gates’ new perspective.
Garrett Boudinot, founder of Vycarb, a startup developing low-carbon building materials for the construction industry, said Gates voiced something that he and his peers in clean energy have felt but haven’t seen amplified.
“He captured the optimism we know and feel,” Boudinot told me, adding that the memo “blew up [his] inbox” with interest.
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He noted that potential advancements, like next-gen geothermal, an inexpensive technology harnessing the earth’s heat, seemed like far off pipe dreams not long ago. Now, they could be a reality quite soon. “These possibilities were viewed as a thing of the distant future and science fiction… they are solutions now.”
Andrew Beebe, managing director at climate technology fund Obvious Ventures, said Gates’ memo represents a crucial move away from climate paralysis.
“We’re shifting from a doomer mentality,” Beebe told me. “We can build a resilient American future … Positioning things about climate as opportunity is a better way to talk about it.”
The progress that climate innovators have made over the last few years is already visible, according to Beebe. “We are making leaps and bounds in progress at the technological level,” he said.
Implicit in the Gates memo would seem to be the idea that the private sector and free market can find solutions to climate change. It can also be viewed as an embrace of the “abundance” mindset, so popular in tech, that believes we can create solutions using human ingenuity rather than simply imposing restrictions.
After all, what is the point of innovating and striving to do better if we’re all just careening toward a fiery apocalypse?
A spokesperson for Gates denied that the memo was a reversal of his previous stance on climate change. It “remains the same as it has always been,” the spokesperson said. “The essay builds on that view. It argues that climate and development must be tackled together and that innovation is the path to achieving both.”
While critics on the right like Kari Lake and Liz Churchill have rolled their eyes that Gates has finally come around — after they were slammed as climate deniers for decades — I’d argue that his shift represents the return of reason to the dialogue and is ultimately something to be applauded.
It is also coming at a time when we shouldn’t be quibbling over the past but rather focusing on prioritizing AI innovation and keeping up with China’s efforts — a race that is fundamentally about power and energy.
In fact, AI’s massive energy demands have created an uncomfortable reality: Meeting emission targets while building the computing infrastructure needed to compete with China may be impossible.
While some remain skeptical about Gates and his memo, conservative climate advocate Sarah Hunt gave the Microsoft mogul some credit.
“When is the last time you had a billionaire come out and say ‘I’m wrong’? Give him props for it,” she told me. “He has no reason to make this statement — he has plenty of money, he doesn’t need to curry favor, he doesn’t have an incentive to be disingenuous.”
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