President Donald Trump might have declared the “war” on climate change was won this week, but experts note that a changing environment is still something humans will have to deal with for the foreseeable future. We just might be changing the way we approach it.
“I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax,” said Trump in a Wednesday X post. “Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful.”
On X, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared the post and added the “100” emoji.
Gates, currently sitting at number 15 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, did publish a blog post about his recent shift in perspective on climate change this week. Despite Trump’s enthusiastic declaration of victory and indication that climate change might not exist, Gates notes in the piece that “climate change is a very important problem,” that “needs to be solved.”
Climate change is described by the World Meteorological Organization as the “state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the average and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.” Per the WMO, this change “may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent human-induced changes in the composition of the atmosphere, ocean or in land use.”
Human actions linked to climate change include the burning of fossil fuels, livestock management, industrial processes and more. These are often referred to as Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Writing for The Guardian, Adam Gabbatt said that Trump has previously said that he did not believe that humans are to blame for climate change in his book “Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again” that came out around a decade ago.
“Violent climate ‘changes’ are nothing new. We have even had ice ages,” said Trump (Gabbatt also noted that at no point in the last 160 years has there been an ice age) in the book. “I just don’t happen to believe they are man-made.”
Since starting his second term in the White House this January, Trump has issued executive order that is aimed at dismantling many of the key actions that have been undertaken at the federal level to address climate change,” per the Sabin Center for Climate Law at Columbia Law School. The president has publicly denounced wind and solar power as well.
“Any State that has built and relied on WINDMILLS and SOLAR for power are seeing RECORD BREAKING INCREASES IN ELECTRICITY AND ENERGY COSTS,” he said in a Truth Social post earlier this year. “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY! We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar. The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!! MAGA”
Notably, Gates has invested billions of dollars towards mitigating climate change impacts for more than two decades. The Microsoft co-founder helped create Breakthrough Energy 10 years ago – an investment platform focused on clean energy innovation and deployment.
“We’ve supported more than 150 companies so far, many of which have blossomed into major businesses,” said Gates. “We’re helping build a growing ecosystem of thousands of innovators working on every aspect of the problem.”
What Gates argued against in his post this week is a “doomsday view of climate change,” that predicts the near end of human civilization. He went as far as to say this view is “wrong,” and proposed that activists focus on innovation and growth to combat the negative impacts of climate change rather than near-term emissions goals. In Gates’ view, research indicates economic growth in poorer countries will have the welcome side effect of reducing carbon emissions.
“It’s time to put human welfare at the center of our climate strategies, which includes reducing the Green Premium to zero and improving agriculture and health in poor countries,” which are expected to bear the brunt of climate change’s negative consequences, Gates said. He also touted progress already made on helping the planet reach a zero emissions state.
Emissions are expected to cause warming on the planet going forward, Gates admitted. This means that Iowa might have a similar climate to Texas in the future and that Texas might be a bit more like Mexico, he explained. At the same time, he said innovations in energy, building materials and more will help mitigate the most dangerous aspects of the changes.
“All countries will be able to construct buildings with low-carbon cement and steel. Almost all new cars will be electric,” said Gates. “Farms will be more productive and less destructive, using fertilizer created without generating any emissions. Power grids will deliver clean electricity reliably, and energy costs will go down.”
Axios reported that some members of the climate activism community were concerned about the blog post (as Gates himself predicted they would be) and that it did not stress how interconnected climate change issues are with the other issues he raised, including global health and economic growth.
“The content was mostly really great, but I would have framed it radically differently,” said Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, as cited by Axios. She described climate change as a “hole in every bucket.”
On the other hand, Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct, said in a text to Axios: “Without ensuring people benefit from climate action, people won’t act.”
Overall, Gates’ piece does not indicate that climate change concerns are over, but that it is an ongoing and rather complicated issue that might benefit from different framing. He urged attendees at the upcoming COP30 global climate summit in Brazil to prioritize spending that is “delivering the greatest possible impact for the most vulnerable people.”