Bill Gates Shakes Up the Climate Discussion

The Honest Broker

It is not just his three truths, but the fact that he said them out loud

Wednesday, in his periodic letter to the world, Bill Gates shared three truths about climate change — and shook up the climate discussion. While the longer term implications of his letter are uncertain, early signs are that Gates has injected a welcome dose of climate realism into the discussion.

Here are his three truths (and I encourage everyone to read his whole letter):

Climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization;
Temperature is not the best way to measure our progress on climate;
Health and prosperity are the best defense against climate change.

For most THB readers, these truths will be well understood, even common sense, and will seem neither shocking nor scandalous.

But for some steeped in climate advocacy grounded in visions of “existential threat” or a looming apocalypse, Gates’ truths have rocked their world.

Some examples from the activist media:

CNN: “a stunning claim”;
Politico: “soft pedals climate”;
Axios: “escalates debate with scientists”;
The New Republic: “we shouldn’t be listening to people like him”

Activist climate scientists joined their fellow-traveling media critics, criticizing the substance of Gates’ letter or expressing concerns that their political enemies might welcome it — Here are a few examples:

Michael Mann: “This is horrifying . . . [climate change] represents an existential threat, exacerbating global security threats, threatening water and food supplies, leading to massive damage. . . it’s like a game of soft climate denial bingo”;
Jonathan Foley: “I stopped listening to Bill Gates years ago. You should stop too”;
Michael Oppenheimer: “{h]is words are bound to be misused by those who would like nothing more than to destroy efforts to deal with climate change.”

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum, there is President Donald Trump, who posted the following, which is just as over-the-top as the reactions from climate activists:

Just like the climate activists, President Trump is treating the letter as an ink blot for political messaging, rather than on its own merits.

I suspect the president does not agree with this statement by Gates:

“Climate change is a very important problem. It needs to be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition.”

From my perspective, Gates’ letter is a welcome contribution to a growing chorus of climate realism and energy pragmatism.

I’ve been asked by several people if I think Gates reads THB or my work — I doubt it, or else he wouldn’t have made a big mistake in his letter suggesting that extreme climate scenarios are today implausible due to climate policy successes. They are implausible because they were always wrong about coal.

I’ve never met Gates, but Bill should definately read THB!

Yesterday, as I settled into my seat for the flight back from Florida (where I spoke at New College) I was invited on very short notice to write an op-ed for the NY Post on Gates letter. I wrote it on the plane and sent it in somewhere over Oklahoma.

I reproduce the op-ed in full below. You can read it at the NY Post site here.

Why Bill Gates turned on the alarmists, and decided climate change isn’t the apocalypse (NYP title)

Earlier this week, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates dropped a truth bomb into the discussion of climate and energy policy. His missive sent the climate lobby into a tizzy as he joined a growing chorus of voices aligned with today’s science and policy consensus on climate.

Gates actually shared three truth bombs, and let’s take a look at each.

Truth #1: Climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization

Here Gates recognizes that the most extreme projections of future climate change have been dialed back considerably over the past decade. Gates explains correctly, “the current consensus is that by 2100 the Earth’s average temperature will probably be between 2°C and 3°C higher than it was in 1850.”

This consensus has rapidly emerged not because the world has rapidly reduced emissions (as Gates incorrectly asserts), but rather because scientists have recognized that those extreme scenarios that have dominated climate research and policy were actually off target from the start.

Specifically, in work pioneered by my colleague Justin Ritchie of the University of British Columbia almost a decade ago, we now know that the previous generation of climate scenarios foresaw a world rushing headlong into coal energy to power the world.

Coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and a global energy system dominated by coal would indeed have had massive emissions with correspondingly largest effects on climate.

In reality, rather than in models, our research shows the world is not rushing into coal and the scenarios that projected as much as a six-fold increase in coal consumption are already implausible. The real world has already departed substantially from these projections.

In recent years, projected global temperature increases to 2100 have been successively revised downwards. Earlier this month the Norwegian group DNV issued its “most likely” projection for global temperatures this century to be a 2.2C increase and achievement of net-zero emissions by the 2090s.

These achievements would not hit the targets of the 2015 Paris Agreement under the U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change, but they are far from a global existential threat, according to the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The new consensus is so robust that those taking Gates to task on this point might be considered today’s new climate deniers.

Truth #2: Temperature is not the best way to measure our progress on climate

For many, Gates assertion would appear obvious. He explains, “the global temperature doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of people’s lives.”

Consider the remarkable progress made over the past 150 years with respect to the human impact of extreme weather events.

Way back in the 1870s — when global temperature were supposedly ideal — approximately 50 million people died globally related to extreme weather, particularly related to an extreme El Nino event of 1877-88.

The 1870s also saw the Great Midwest Wildfires of 1871 which killed as many as 2,400 people, the massive 1872 Baltic Sea flood, a 1875 midwestern locust swam of an estimated 12.5 trillion locusts, the 1878 China typhoon that killed as many as 100,000 people, and the U.S. experienced 6 landfalling major hurricanes in the 1870s, compared to just 3 in the 2010s.

It is not widely appreciated, but 2025 (still with two months to go), is currently on track for the lowest global death toll from extreme weather in all of human history. Part of that is good fortune to be sure — for instance, the Northern Hemisphere is well below average in terms of tropical cyclone activity.

However, 2025 fits a remarkable long-term trend of lives improving due to advance in the applications of science and technology in preparing for disasters, coupled with the consequences of sustained economic growth around the world.

Sustaining that track record will take concentrated effort, but there is no reason that the human condition cannot continue to dramatically improve this century even as temperatures warm another degree or so.

Truth #3: Health and prosperity are the best defense against climate change

To understand this claim, there is no need to look at futures in computer models, one just needs to look at the world as it is today.

Think about it. Would you feel more protected against the vagaries of climate variability and change if you lived in one of the world’s poorest countries or one of its richest?

Now imagine if everyone around the world enjoyed the economic and technological advantages of the United States. Of course resiliency to changes in climate would be much greater if everyone around the world were as wealthy as those of us in the United States. As Gates observes: “Development doesn’t depend on helping people adapt to a warmer climate — development is adaptation.”

Gates includes what might have been a fourth truth, and one we should not forget: “Climate change is a very important problem. It needs to be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition.”

Understanding the true nature of a problem is a key first step in effectively addressing it. Climate change is indeed real, but it is not the apocalypse.

Comments welcomed! Please keep them on subject and as usual, no comments of a personal nature about anyone, thanks!

Before you go — If you think that we are making progess on climate realism and energy pragmatism and would like to see even more, then please click that “ Like” to let everyone know. More likes mean that THB rises in the Substack algorithm and gets in front of more readers. More readers mean that THB reaches more people in more places, broadening understandings and discussions of complex issues where science meets politics. Thanks!

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Canada’s economic performance cratered after Ottawa pivoted to the ‘green’ economy

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Canada’s economic performance cratered after Ottawa pivoted to the ‘green’ economy

Published on October 31, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jason Clemens and Jake Fuss

There are ostensibly two approaches to economic growth from a government policy perspective. The first is to create the best environment possible for entrepreneurs, business owners and investors by ensuring effective government that only does what’s needed, maintains competitive taxes and reasonable regulations. It doesn’t try to pick winners and losers but rather introduces policies to create a positive environment for all businesses to succeed.

The alternative is for the government to take an active role in picking winners and losers through taxes, spending and regulations. The idea here is that a government can promote certain companies and industries (as part of a larger “industrial policy”) better than allowing the market—that is, individual entrepreneurs, businesses and investors—to make those decisions.

It’s never purely one or the other but governments tend to generally favour one approach. The Trudeau era represented a marked break from the consensus that existed for more than two decades prior. Trudeau’s Ottawa introduced a series of tax measures, spending initiatives and regulations to actively constrain the traditional energy sector while promoting what the government termed the “green” economy.

The scope and cost of the policies introduced to actively pick winners and losers is hard to imagine given its breadth. Direct spending on the “green” economy by the federal government increased from $600 million the year before Trudeau took office (2014/15) to $23.0 billion last year (2024/25).

Ottawa introduced regulations to make it harder to build traditional energy projects (Bill C-69), banned tankers carrying Canadian oil from the northwest coast of British Columbia (Bill C-48), proposed an emissions cap on the oil and gas sector, cancelled pipeline developments, mandated almost all new vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission by 2035, imposed new homebuilding regulations for energy efficiency, changed fuel standards, and the list goes on and on.

Despite the mountain of federal spending and regulations, which were augmented by additional spending and regulations by various provincial governments, the Canadian economy has not been transformed over the last decade, but we have suffered marked economic costs.

Consider the share of the total economy in 2014 linked with the “green” sector, a term used by Statistics Canada in its measurement of economic output, was 3.1 per cent. In 2023, the green economy represented 3.6 per cent of the Canadian economy, not even a full one-percentage point increase despite the spending and regulating.

And Ottawa’s initiatives did not deliver the green jobs promised. From 2014 to 2023, only 68,000 jobs were created in the entire green sector, and the sector now represents less than 2 per cent of total employment.

Canada’s economic performance cratered in line with this new approach to economic growth. Simply put, rather than delivering the promised prosperity, it delivered economic stagnation. Consider that Canadian living standards, as measured by per-person GDP, were lower as of the second quarter of 2025 compared to six years ago. In other words, we’re poorer today than we were six years ago. In contrast, U.S. per-person GDP grew by 11.0 per cent during the same period.

Median wages (midpoint where half of individuals earn more, and half earn less) in every Canadian province are now lower than comparable median wages in every U.S. state. Read that again—our richest provinces now have lower median wages than the poorest U.S. states.

A significant part of the explanation for Canada’s poor performance is the collapse of private business investment. Simply put, businesses didn’t invest much in Canada, particularly when compared to the United States, and this was all pre-Trump tariffs. Canada’s fundamentals and the general business environment were simply not conducive to private-sector investment.

These results stand in stark contrast to the prosperity enjoyed by Canadians during the Chrétien to Harper years when the focus wasn’t on Ottawa picking winners and losers but rather trying to establish the most competitive environment possible to attract and retain entrepreneurs, businesses, investors and high-skilled professionals. The policies that dominated this period are the antithesis of those in place now: balanced budgets, smaller but more effective government spending, lower and competitive taxes, and smart regulations.

As the Carney government prepares to present its first budget to the Canadian people, many questions remain about whether there will be a genuine break from the policies of the Trudeau government or whether it will simply be the same old same old but dressed up in new language and fancy terms. History clearly tells us that when governments try to pick winners and losers, the strategy doesn’t lead to prosperity but rather stagnation. Let’s all hope our new prime minister knows his history and has learned its lessons.

Jason Clemens

Executive Vice President, Fraser Institute

Jake Fuss

Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute

Business

Canadians paid $90 billion in government debt interest in 2024/25

Published on October 31, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss, Tegan Hill and William Dunstan

Next week, the Carney government will table its long-awaited first budget. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney launched a federal spending review to find $25 billion in savings by 2028. Even if the government meets this goal, it won’t be enough to eliminate the federal deficit—projected to reach as high as $92.2 billion in 2025/26—and start paying down debt. That means a substantial amount of taxpayer dollars will continue to flow towards federal debt interest payments, rather than programs and services or tax relief for Canadians.

When a government spends more than it raises in revenue and runs a budget deficit, it accumulates debt. As of 2024/25, the federal and provincial governments will have accumulated a total projected $2.3 trillion in combined net debt (total debt minus financial assets).

Of course, like households, governments must pay interest on their debt. According to our recent study, the provinces and federal government expect to spend a combined $92.5 billion on debt interest payments in 2024/25.

And like any government spending, taxpayers fund these debt interest payments. The difference is that instead of funding important programs, such as health care, these taxpayer dollars will finance government debt. This is the cost of deficit spending.

How much do Canadians pay each year in government debt interest costs? On a per-person basis, combined provincial and federal debt interest costs in 2024/25 are expected to range from $1,937 in Alberta to $3,432 in Newfoundland and Labrador. These figures represent provincial debt interest costs, plus the federal portion allocated to each province based on a five-year average (2020-2024) of their share of Canada’s population.

For perspective, it’s helpful to compare debt interest payments to other budget items. For instance, the federal government estimates that in 2024/25 it will spend more on debt interest costs ($53.8 billion) than on child-care benefits ($35.1 billion) or the Canada Health Transfer ($52.1 billion), which supports provincial health-care systems.

Provincial governments too spend more money on interest payments than on large programs. For example, in 2024/25, Ontario expects to spend more on debt interest payments ($15.2 billion) than on post-secondary education ($14.2 billion). That same year, British Columbia expects to spend more on debt interest payments ($4.4 billion) than on child welfare ($4.3 billion).

Unlike other forms of spending, governments cannot simply decide to spend less on debt interest payments in a given year. To lower their debt interest payments, governments must rein in spending and eliminate deficits so they can start to pay down debt.

Unfortunately, most governments in Canada are doing the opposite. All but one province (Saskatchewan) plans to run a deficit in 2025/26 while the federal deficit could exceed $90 billion.

To stop racking up debt, governments must balance their budgets. By spending less today, governments can ensure that a larger share of tax dollars go towards programs or tax relief to benefit Canadians rather than simply financing government debt.