When Bill Gates speaks about climate change, the world listens. That’s why his new essay, “Three Tough Truths About Climate,” is so troubling.
Gates argues there’s “too much” emphasis on “near-term emissions goals,” ostensibly for humanitarian reasons. He says we should focus instead on the more serious issues of “poverty and disease,” in part because technology will solve the most severe climate impacts. Yet the points in his essay are neither “tough” nor “true,” but belie the same ideology that has sabotaged climate action for half a century: a refusal to confront power.
When billionaires preach tech fixes and innovation, they’re not offering hard truths; they’re just aiming to avoid regulation and protect their freedom to pollute and profit. Gates’s advocacy for breakthroughs — fusion, carbon capture, “clean” cement — as a way to reconcile rising living standards with a stable planet is just a rebrand of the fossil fuel industry’s favorite myth. If salvation lies in carbon capture or advanced reactors, then drilling today becomes an act of faith in tomorrow’s miracles.
Consider Occidental Petroleum. The oil major is building “Stratos,” a vast carbon capture operation in Texas touted as a model of “climate progress.” Yet its CEO has been explicit: the technology’s purpose is to “preserve our industry over time,” giving it “a license to continue to operate for the next 60, 70, 80 years.” These schemes aren’t designed to reduce emissions — they’re designed to extend extraction.
Gates is simply offering world leaders and corporate executives a convenient excuse to further delay the hard work of cutting emissions now. His essay was greeted with glee by climate deniers like President Donald Trump, who immediately posted on Truth Social “I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue.” Such a reception was…
Auteur: Christopher Marquis
