Bill Gates speaks out about the climate critique: "It's not the world we live in"

Bill Gates sparked a fierce debate in November when he published an essay titled Three tough truths about climate ahead of COP30. In it, he argued that climate change is not an existential threat to humanity – and suggested the world should devote more attention and funding to global health, rather than treating climate as the sole priority.

The reaction across the impact world was polarised. Supporters called it optimistic and true. Critics accused him of giving climate sceptics exactly what they wanted.

The critique grew louder when US president Donald Trump publicly applauded Gates:

"I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"Super, super important"

Now Gates is responding, in an interview with Norrsken founder Niklas Adalberth, led by the organisation’s Nordics director Sofia Lindelöw.

The conversation was recorded during Gates’ visit to Norrsken’s Stockholm hub last Friday, and will be released on Thursday via Norrsken’s Spotify podcast, How We Fix This.

"Climate is super, super important," Gates says.

At the same time, he argues that too much capital is being funnelled into climate projects that deliver too little impact for the money. Particularly, he argues, when compared with the cost-effectiveness of proven global health interventions.

"We basically save lives for less than $2,000 per life saved. So anything that is more expensive than that is not [justified], whether it's government aid money or Gates Foundation's money," he says.

"I'll keep going"

In the podcast, Gates also claims many green projects "will never get to a negative green premium", meaning they won’t become cheaper than the high-emissions alternatives they’re meant to replace.

Instead, he says, resources should be directed towards interventions that produce the biggest measurable impact.

He also points to what he thinks is a growing imbalance in government spending between global health and climate.

"What I was saying in my memo was that I'm going to give more to every one of these things. I'm going to continue to be the greatest advocate that governments should be more generous in helping the poorest and solving climate."

"Not the world we live in"

Still, Gates insists there simply isn’t enough money to do everything – particularly if large sums are poured into climate initiatives where funding is poorly deployed.

"I wish that was the world we lived in. It's not the world we live in," he says, and continues:

"If you only see climate in this kind of non-numeric way, then my memo is disappointing. It was exacerbated by the fact that Trump said: 'okay, you agreed, you surrendered'. But no, I'm the biggest spender and advocate in both global health and climate."

Invests in fossil fuels

The same week Gates visited Stockholm, The Guardian reported that the Gates Foundation Trust held $254m in fossil fuel investments in 2024 – including stakes in Chevron, BP and Shell – its highest level in nine years.

That’s despite Gates previously saying both he and the foundation had moved away from oil and gas.

Gates has defended the decision to retain holdings in fossil fuel companies before. In an interview with the Financial Times in 2019, he argued that selling shares as a form of pressure isn’t effective:

"Divestment, to date, probably has reduced about zero tonnes of emissions. It’s not like you’ve capital-starved [the] people making steel and gasoline," he said.