Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates has devoted greater than $2 billion to funding zero-emissions applied sciences since 2015, when he based enterprise agency Breakthrough Vitality. A decade later, he’s adjusting his local weather funding thesis to prioritize human welfare and urging buyers and firms to do the identical.
An excessive amount of local weather finance is devoted to innovation that guarantees near-term emissions reductions on the expense of initiatives geared toward enhancing human well being and livelihoods as international temperatures rise, Gates argues in a prolonged “Gates Notes” essay printed Oct. 28.
For instance, he cites the choice of 1 low-income nation in 2021 to ban artificial fertilizers as a solution to promote natural farming earlier than cost-effective alternate options had been accessible. Gates doesn’t title the nation, Sri Lanka, however the nation was pressured to reverse the coverage simply eight months later to stabilize its economic system.
“Farmers’ yields plummeted, there was a lot much less meals accessible and costs skyrocketed,” Gates wrote. “The nation was hit by a disaster as a result of the federal government valued lowering emissions above different vital issues.”
Expensive COP30 attendees
Gates’ essay, titled “Three powerful truths about local weather,” is addressed to policymakers, companies and different local weather leaders planning to attend the COP30 gathering in mid-November. These truths:
- “Local weather change is a significant issue, nevertheless it won’t be the top of civilization” — And civilization will want much more funding in low-carbon constructing supplies, clear electrical energy technology, wildfire administration programs and different infrastructure designed to resist excessive climate.
- “Temperature isn’t the easiest way to measure our progress on local weather” — A greater metric is high quality of life, as expressed by the United Nations Human Growth Index.
- “Well being and prosperity are the perfect protection towards local weather change” — There’s a direct correlation between financial progress and a discount in projected deaths associated to rising temperatures. “If you have a look at the issue this fashion, it turns into simpler to seek out the perfect buys in local weather adaptation,” Gates mentioned. On the high of the listing: enhancements for agriculture, corresponding to climate-resilient crops and animals.
No time to waste
The timing is pressing, Gates mentioned, as governments pull again assist for growing nations. His viewpoint is influenced by Breakthrough Vitality’s work together with the Gates Basis’s 25 years of philanthropy in lots of international locations the place local weather change is taking its toll on human well being and livelihoods within the type of excessive climate.
“It is a likelihood to refocus on the metric that ought to depend much more than emissions and temperature change: enhancing lives,” Gates mentioned within the essay. “Our chief aim ought to be to stop struggling, significantly for these within the hardest circumstances who stay on this planet’s poorest international locations.”
Breakthrough Vitality, which has invested in additional than 150 corporations over the previous decade, focuses on improvements that erase the “inexperienced premium,” or the associated fee delta between low-carbon applied sciences and conventional approaches, in 5 areas: electrical energy, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and buildings.
The twist is that impacts on the human situation will carry much more weight for Breakthrough.
For instance, Gates wrote that whereas heating and cooling buildings accounts for a comparatively small portion of emissions right now, that share will skyrocket because the world urbanizes and demand for air-conditioning will increase. The world wants extra investments in electrical warmth pumps — 5 instances extra environment friendly than boilers and furnaces — together with new approaches for home windows and constructing insulation, he mentioned.
Hints about Breakthrough Vitality’s shift in thesis emerged in March, with stories that the agency had slashed dozens of positions associated to coverage and partnership engagements.
Like many high-profile enterprise leaders, Gates has avoided public criticism of the Trump administration’s systemic dismantling of federal assist for clear power and different local weather applied sciences. That is one in all his first public reflections since many incentives from former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Discount Act had been killed.
Whereas investments in early-stage local weather tech cooled 19 % within the first half of 2025, in contrast with 2024, Breakthrough Vitality stays dedicated to de-risking new applied sciences. On Oct. 21, for instance, it disclosed a $50 million grant for low-carbon iron startup Electra.
“I want there have been sufficient cash to fund each good local weather change concept,” Gates mentioned in his essay. “Sadly, there isn’t, and we’ve got to make tradeoffs so we are able to ship essentially the most profit with restricted sources. In these circumstances, our selections ought to be guided by data-based evaluation that identifies methods to ship the best return for human welfare.”
