Claim:
Philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates said climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
Rating:
In October 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates said climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
Gates has been a longtime supporter of innovations to reduce global warming and combat climate change, and he previously warned that, if unchecked, the death rate from climate change could be five times worse than that from the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Gates published a book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” that discussed how to reach worldwide zero greenhouse-gas emissions.
One Reddit user who shared the alleged quote wrote, “Bill Gates softens stance on climate change stating it ‘will not lead to humanity’s demise.'”
Bill Gates softens stance on climate change stating it ‘will not lead to humanity’s demise’
byu/Sufficient-History71 inclimate
Users on X (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived) also shared the alleged quote.
Gates did write those words in a memo published on his website on Oct. 28, 2025. In that memo, Gates looked ahead to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil and argued that “although climate change will have serious consequences—particularly for people in the poorest countries—it will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
Gates blamed a “doomsday outlook” on climate change for focusing only on short-term goals rather than long-term solutions that could improve the lives of those most affected. He instead suggested that governments should “put human welfare at the center of our climate strategies” through reducing the cost of choosing “Green” and improving agriculture and health in poorer countries.
Given the above, we found the quote to be correctly attributed.
The full quote from Gates’ memo read (emphasis ours):
There’s a doomsday view of climate change that goes like this:
In a few decades, cataclysmic climate change will decimate civilization. The evidence is all around us—just look at all the heat waves and storms caused by rising global temperatures. Nothing matters more than limiting the rise in temperature.
Fortunately for all of us, this view is wrong. Although climate change will have serious consequences—particularly for people in the poorest countries—it will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future. Emissions projections have gone down, and with the right policies and investments, innovation will allow us to drive emissions down much further.
Some users argued that Gates’ memo indicated a softening on his stance on climate change. Gates wrote:
I know that some climate advocates will disagree with me, call me a hypocrite because of my own carbon footprint (which I fully offset with legitimate carbon credits), or see this as a sneaky way of arguing that we shouldn’t take climate change seriously.
To be clear: Climate change is a very important problem. It needs to be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition. Every tenth of a degree of heating that we prevent is hugely beneficial because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people’s lives.
Both the Gates Foundation and Breakthrough Energy, a Gates-founded investment platform aiming to accelerate clean energy innovation and deployment, fund projects that seek to mitigate the dangers of climate change.
Sources
“Bill Gates on Tackling Climate Change and the Ongoing Pandemic Response.” PBS News, 22 Feb. 2021, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/bill-gates-on-tackling-climate-change-and-the-ongoing-pandemic-response.
Climate Adaptation: Ensuring Resilience in Agriculture. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/climate-adaptation. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
COP30 Brasil Amazônia – English. https://cop30.br/en. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
Gates, Bill. “My New Climate Book Is Finally Here.” Gates Notes, 14 Feb. 2021, https://www.gatesnotes.com/my-new-climate-book-is-finally-here.
———. “Three Tough Truths about Climate.” Gates Notes, 28 Oct. 2025, https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/three-tough-truths-about-climate.
“Portfolio.” Breakthrough Energy, https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/portfolio/index.html. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
