Bill Gates and the Death of His Climate Crisis Agenda
Updated
Bill Gates recently published a Gates Notes that sounded less like his characteristic call to arms against devastating climate change and more like a strategic repositioning. In his memo, titled “Three Tough Truths About Climate,” Gates plainly noted the climate crisis he’d preached about and written a book on “will not lead to humanity’s demise” as he’d previously clamored. No indeed. Instead, he urged the world to focus not just on temperature targets, but on human welfare. On the surface, it appears Gates is essentially broadening his concern by confirming that, yes, climate change is serious, but the real metric is human welfare, innovation, and cost-effectiveness. Still, as with anything Bill Gates does, scrutiny is critical because, beneath the surface of his musings, undoubtedly lies a deeper agenda driven by greed and profit.
In his recent Gates Note, published in late October 2025 (where the word “vaccine” appears 86 times), Gates began by rejecting the long-standing doomsday narrative he helped create, stating, “Although climate change will have serious consequences—particularly for people in the poorest countries—it will not lead to humanity’s demise.” In his bold one-eighty, Gates argues that the climate community has become fixated on near-term emissions and temperatures, to the detriment of the broader query of how to reduce suffering, disease, and poverty. Hmmm. OK. This shift by Gates begs the question of whose suffering matters, and who sets the scale of it? If the focus shifts from emissions reduction to “improving lives,” then clearly Gates’ focus will shift from his stance of radical structural change to incremental, deep-state remedies under his philanthropic management.
Gates explains that global energy use is increasing, which, he clarifies, correlates with prosperity. Gates maps economic growth to energy consumption, arguing that it is unrealistic to expect global demand to shrink. In other words, he’s implicitly stating that we need new energy (his, of course), not less energy. His logic reflects his investments in innovative technology, tech solutions, and private markets. But if growth is the yardstick, then fossil fuel incumbency—the entrenched dominance of coal, oil, and natural gas in the global energy system—will undoubtedly become part of the blueprint rather than being challenged, as Gates has urged society to do for years.
Additionally, Gates asserts that every future intervention to “save the world” should be judged on its ability to protect and improve lives cost-effectively. Ranking high on his list are malaria prevention, access to vaccines (of course), and adaptations in agriculture. “Additives to cattle feed that keep livestock from producing methane are nearly cheap enough to be economical for farmers, and a vaccine that does the same thing has been shown to work,” Gates exclaimed, adding:
“AI is also helping researchers develop new vaccines and treatments faster, adding to the long list of affordable lifesaving tools that are already available, including vaccines, biofortified foods, bed nets, and treatments for diseases like AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.”
By the way, instead of pushing regenerative farming and wholesome, organic foods, Gates’ biofortified foods refer to staple crops that have been genetically modified to contain higher levels of essential vitamins and minerals, kind of like enriching the unhealthy white bread. Favoring patented GM seeds that burden small, local farmers, Gates promotes biofortification as a win for nutrition and sustainability. Nonetheless, critics rightly argue that, as with all of Gates’ philanthropic rationales, he fails to address the root causes. Why? Perhaps because he’d rather use his billions to push an agenda that is void of true healing and that guarantees a return on his investment.
For example, in Gates’ new viewpoint, his long-preached emissions reduction is suggested only if it is cost-effective. Gates’ change in views emerges as coldly calculated, with his priorities shifting to where he sees a profit. Whether deliberate or not, Gates’ memo is a direct pivot from his threat-based narrative of ‘we must stop the impending climate disaster around the corner,’ to a management-based strategy of ‘we must optimize suffering and innovation.’ Indeed, Gates’ current approach to climate action is less urgent, while suggesting greater reliance on private innovation, philanthropic capital, and a benevolent deep state.
So here we are. Gates’ message is clear, and it was never about saving the planet. For decades now, the so-called climate agenda has really been about tightening the screws on personal freedom. Essentially, a glossy panic-driven campaign engineered by global elites to ultimately regulate every detail of our existence – our home thermostat, our grocery shopping list, our gas tank, our zip code, and so on. And now, right on cue, Gates appears to be stepping back, conceding that the climate catastrophe might not be the extinction-level event he once pitched with his billionaire certainty.
Yet, for those of us who never bought into the hysteria, Gates’ “reversal” doesn’t change much. Millions of patriotic Americans still drive gas-powered trucks, heat our homes with fossil fuels, and couldn’t care less what Gates or Davos thinks about solar panels. We never outsourced our critical thinking to technocrats in the first place. Still, to many, it is deeply satisfying to witness one of the loudest orchestrators of climate panic quietly downgrade his apocalypse forecast. Whatever the reason behind Gates’ about face – whether it’s self-preservation, strategic PR, or just plain fatigue—it’s one less billionaire dictating policy from a throne of climate hypocrisy. With any luck, this represents the end of a narrative that’s been used to justify every form of tyranny imaginable. Either way, following Gates’ memo, it will be interesting to watch how the narrative, and the dictatorship that goes along with it, shifts.
