Bill Gates about turn on Climate Change

Bill Gates says climate crisis won’t cause ‘humanity’s demise’ in call to shift focus to ‘improving lives’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/28/bill-gates-climate-crisis-pivot

Much as I have said all along we have a climate problem not a climate emergency. We need to reduce our consumption of our finite resources and reduce our impact on our planet.

This needs to be done on a sensible time scale and on a science and engineering basis not on emotion and dogma.

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The billionaire Microsoft co-founder criticized what he described as a “doomsday view of climate change” which is focusing “too much on near-term emissions goals”.

“Although climate change will have serious consequences – particularly for people in the poorest countries – it will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”

“Although climate change will hurt poor people more than anyone else, for the vast majority of them it will not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and welfare,” Gates wrote.

“The biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been. Understanding this will let us focus our limited resources on interventions that will have the greatest impact for the most vulnerable people.”

He said the Cop30 climate summit, which will bring together world leaders in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belém in November, was “a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives”.

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Maybe at last the world will see sense and stop wasting resources on wind turbines, solar panel and batteries in the somewhat mistaken belief that this will ‘Save the Planet”

Parents
  • Yes, Drax is green wash but we need to keep it available to burn  paper, local wood, dry green waste and ALL plastics. We should never recycle plastics as new plastic is much cleaner and cheaper.  We must stop polluting the worlds oceans by sending it overseas to some third world country so we get a carbon credit. The cost of all the resorting 6% plastics and extra handling and transport costs are a total waste of money.  Install some chain grates at Drax to reclaim the energy with chimney scrubbers to remove any nasties is the way.

    Climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels but 40% of these CO2 emissions are the result of the construction industries building new houses and infrastructure mostly in developing nations to accommodate their children.  If married couples only have 2 children then the happy children will inherit a home without having to cause a housing shortage. Extra kids will likely have to live in a slum.

    Neither Jesus or later day prophet Mohammed advocated large families so it would be a good idea if the UN and other humanitarian agencies started assisted family planning clinics to encourage voluntary vasectomies, free contraceptives etc. 

    Electrisation of cars will at best save only 1% of CO2 emissions.  

  • I totally understand the need for Drax and other such power stations.  It is the misrepresentation which I think is the issue by saying it is Green.  How can burning stuff be Green?  In the same way that the industry says remove gas and go electric or electrification is the way forward.  When the truth is only X % of electricity in the UK is made from Nuclear, solar, wind and wave.  They have no idea that Gas is used to prop up the National Grid.  I am fairly certain that the UK's Minister for Energy Michael Shanks doe not even know what CCGT is.  CCGT is Combined Cycle Gas Turbine, which is a highly efficient type of gas-fired power plant.

Reply
  • I totally understand the need for Drax and other such power stations.  It is the misrepresentation which I think is the issue by saying it is Green.  How can burning stuff be Green?  In the same way that the industry says remove gas and go electric or electrification is the way forward.  When the truth is only X % of electricity in the UK is made from Nuclear, solar, wind and wave.  They have no idea that Gas is used to prop up the National Grid.  I am fairly certain that the UK's Minister for Energy Michael Shanks doe not even know what CCGT is.  CCGT is Combined Cycle Gas Turbine, which is a highly efficient type of gas-fired power plant.

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