Bill Gates speaks at the annual Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum in Manhattan, New York City, on Sept. 24.Caitlin Ochs/Reuters
When Microsoft co-founder and global philanthropist Bill Gates recently released a 17-page memo recalibrating his position on climate change, he knew controversy would ensue. Still, it is difficult to overstate the impact of his observations, and the alarm, disappointment and bewilderment it has caused.
In some quarters, though, Mr. Gates was met with pure elation. “I (we) just won the war on the climate change hoax,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on his social-media platform Truth Social. “Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely wrong on the issue.”
That is certainly not what Mr. Gates said or conceded to. But he did call for a “strategic pivot” in the climate fight, away from focusing solely on limiting rising temperatures to focusing on preventing disease and poverty around the world. The memo included provocative quotes such as: “Although climate change will have serious consequences – particularly for people in the poorest countries – it will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
This, from the man who only a few years ago published How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, which detailed the transformation necessary to avoid the catastrophic consequences of a warming globe. Now he’s saying CO2 emissions aren’t a threat to planetary existence, and he dismissed the “doomsday outlook” being propagated by alarmists in the climate-science field.
So, does Mr. Gates truly believe this, or is he simply tapping into the current zeitgeist, which is decidedly cool toward climate initiatives, period?
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government on Tuesday unveiled a budget that emphasized the economy, and measures to boost it, over prioritizing the environment. This, after Mr. Carney killed the carbon tax as one of his first measures after becoming national Liberal Leader, and ahead of the federal election. He is championing fossil-fuel development, including new pipelines.
Analysis: Federal budget signals Carney’s new tone on climate policy, but not much substance
This is the same Mr. Carney who was once the UN special envoy for climate action and finance, and principal driver of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which sought to encourage corporate investment in green initiatives. That, too, is now dying out. Even the respected U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank, recently advocated that the world give up attempting to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 C and instead prepare for an increase of 3 degrees or more.
Mark Carney speaks at the 2020 UN Climate Change Conference in London, England.POOL New/AFP/Getty Images
The world appears to be yielding to forces – economic, political and otherwise – that have pushed climate change off the front pages and back into the journals of academia. Or at least that’s how it feels. Sure, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, continues the good fight – but it seems no one is listening, including here in this country.
But the real villain has been Mr. Trump, who long declared climate change a fraud perpetrated on America by woke leftist radicals. Now that he has no one telling him no, the man is stomping unchecked throughout the world. He’s completely abandoned the climate pledges the U.S. made under the Paris Agreement and nuked the powerful green initiatives that were being funded under his predecessor’s Inflation Reduction Act. The U.S. is also skipping the UN’s upcoming climate summit in Brazil.
He’s declared war on wind and solar projects and embraced fossil-fuel development – drill, baby, drill – including revival of the coal industry. The Environmental Protection Agency, now led by Trump acolytes, is trying to undermine the very scientific evidence that shows CO2 emissions threaten human life.
But it’s not just right-wing politicians responsible for the current state of affairs – COVID-19 played a role, too. Its worldwide disruption led to inflation, higher interest rates and more debt. And the reality is, fighting climate change isn’t cheap. It takes government funding to underwrite things like electric-vehicle rebate programs. It’s also one of the central reasons Ottawa abandoned the carbon tax – consumers believed it was costing them more at the gas pump and elsewhere.
This climate ennui is not just happening in North America. Even in Europe, the world’s green leader, politicians are reconsidering some of the pledges made under the continent’s groundbreaking Green Deal. EU countries are bickering over the volume of polluting credits their industries can use to meet 2040 climate-neutrality targets. Some are demanding more flexibility, which usually translates into more time to meet goals, which means kicking the climate-change can down the road.
The Bill Gates memo is right about one thing: People like him don’t have to worry about climate change. He has the money to find workarounds, like air-conditioned mansions and cars. It’s the poor and disadvantaged who will pay the biggest price for our inaction, including with their lives. And the world will have to live with the burden of knowing it had a chance to do something about it, but didn’t.