Putting Human Well-being Above Emission Metrics: Bill Gates’ Controversial Stance

For decades, climate change has been viewed as the greatest challenge threatening human civilization. A series of international summits and agreements have been established with the goal of keeping the global temperature increase below the 1.5–2°C threshold compared to pre-industrial levels. However, amidst these policy and technical efforts, Bill Gates has introduced a thought-provoking perspective: human well-being and safety must be prioritized over the rigid pursuit of emission metrics.

In his article, “The Climate Reality,” dated October 28, he argues that traditional metrics like CO₂ or the average global temperature increase do not fully reflect the quality of life of the populations directly affected. Gates poses a hypothetical situation: if he had to choose between completely eliminating malaria and letting the planet warm by an additional 0.1°C, he would readily choose the former, because the pain, damage, and deaths caused by disease are happening every day right now. For him, the way the world currently “measures” climate change ignores the human factor, which should have a central role.

Gates’s perspective comes just weeks before the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, where nations will update their climate commitments, emphasizing renewable energy and plans to phase out fossil fuels. He worries that the race to meet emission numbers, if detached from social well-being, will lead to a backlash and harm billions of the world’s poorest people.

One of the central tenets of Gates’s argument is that the poor, despite being most strongly impacted by climate change, are currently facing much more urgent challenges such as infectious diseases, lack of electricity and clean water, food shortages, high child mortality rates, and weak healthcare systems. In this context, climate change becomes a long-term risk, which is harder to convince people about than immediate life-or-death issues. According to him, discussing climate without connecting it to the survival needs of poor communities will create a detachment from reality and reduce the effectiveness of policies.

To illustrate, Gates cites the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI), a measure from 0 to 1 that assesses life expectancy, education level, and per capita income. Switzerland currently achieves an HDI of 0.96, while South Sudan only reaches 0.33 – the world’s lowest. The approximately 30 countries in the lowest HDI group account for one-eighth of the global population but only generate 0.33% of the GDP. Children born in South Sudan are tens of times more likely to die before the age of five than children in Sweden, and weak infrastructure perpetuates the cycle of poverty. He argues that if climate policies do not take these challenges into account, they will fail on a humanitarian level.

Gates warns that some countries have adopted extreme climate measures without assessing the social consequences. He provides the example of a low-income country that completely banned synthetic fertilizers to reduce emissions, leading to a sharp drop in agricultural productivity, food shortages, escalating prices, and social unrest. In another case, some international lending organizations, pressured by wealthy shareholder groups, were forced to stop financing fossil fuel power projects. Despite the expectation of emission reductions, these decisions prevented many poor nations from accessing stable electricity for homes, schools, and health clinics, thereby hindering economic development and threatening basic livelihoods.

According to Gates, the nature of climate change is an intergenerational issue, where fossil fuels provide benefits today but cause harm in the future. The conflict between the present and tomorrow forces many governments into one of two extremes: sacrificing social welfare for environmental goals, or ignoring the environment to prioritize growth. The solution must lie in a balance point – simultaneously ensuring a quality of life while maintaining climate commitments.

Surveys in many developing countries show that people prioritize food, healthcare, jobs, and access to electricity; while climate change is only ranked after acute threats like disease and lack of medicine. Gates suggests that investing every dollar in agriculture and healthcare has a strong but indirect effect against climate change, as it helps combat hunger under extreme weather conditions, reduces mortality from epidemics and natural disasters, and builds more sustainable public health.

He emphasizes that every decision must be based on data about actual damage, weigh costs and benefits, and assess the direct impact on people. If solely focused on CO₂, policy can easily fall into “moral self-delusion” – the feeling of doing the right thing while in reality causing harm. A sound climate strategy needs to achieve equity between rich and poor nations, between current and future generations, and between environmental responsibility and the right to live under humane conditions.

According to Gates, developed nations – which have been emitting for centuries – have an obligation to transfer cheap clean technology, provide preferential financial support, and invest in climate-smart agriculture, while also ensuring stable electricity for essential services. He argues that it is impossible to ask poor nations to abandon fossil fuels when they lack alternative infrastructure, and the most sensible path is the parallel use of both fossil fuels and renewable energy during a controlled transition period.

Gates argues that fighting poverty is also a way of fighting climate change, as higher incomes allow people to invest in sturdy housing, increase resilience after natural disasters, and improve infrastructure – factors that boost resistance. Lessons from recent crises like Covid-19, the food crisis, or energy volatility show that weak healthcare systems and poor infrastructure cause damages to skyrocket immediately, not in the distant future.

Instead of asking, “how many gigatons of CO₂ did we reduce?”, Gates suggests the world should ask, “how many people have escaped poverty, disease, lack of electricity, and premature death?” This is the true moral focus of climate policy. Concluding his article, he affirms that climate change, disease, and poverty are all serious and require commensurate investment, but all policies must be based on real data, not emotion.

Bill Gates’s perspective does not deny climate change, but rather opposes an extreme approach that neglects human well-being. He stresses that people must be at the center of every climate strategy, investing in health and agriculture yields strong adaptation benefits, and poor nations cannot bear the same pressure as rich countries. As the world prepares for COP30, this reminder points to a simple truth: we need a stable climate, but not at the expense of the lives of billions in the present.

According to: vnexpress and collected from the internet.