Billionaire Bill Gates calls for climate strategy pivot ahead of COP30

Billionaire investor and philanthropist Bill Gates called on world leaders on Tuesday to adapt to extreme weather and focus on improving health outcomes rather than temperature reduction targets ahead of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil.

COP30 will be held November 10-21 in the port city of Belem in Brazil's lower Amazon region. Countries are due to present updated national climate commitments and assess progress on renewable energy targets agreed at previous summits.

The world has spent the last decade working towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, aiming to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average by mid-century - something that remains well off-track.

While climate change was serious, it was "not civilization-ending", Gates posted on his personal blog. He wrote that rather than focus on temperature as the best measure of progress, climate resilience would be better built by strengthening health and prosperity.

He called for a shift in focus toward improving human welfare, particularly in vulnerable regions, through investments in energy access, healthcare, and agricultural resilience.

These areas, he argued, offered more equitable benefits than temperature goals and should be central to climate strategies discussed at COP30.

Gates, who has invested billions to accelerate clean technology innovation through his climate-focused venture network, Breakthrough Energy, also challenged policymakers and donors to scrutinise whether climate aid was being spent effectively.

He urged them to use data to maximise impact, and called on investors to back companies developing high-impact clean technologies so they could more quickly lower costs.

He said direct deaths from natural disasters have fallen 90% over the last century to between 40,000 and 50,000 annually, largely due to better warning systems and more resilient infrastructure.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the World Meteorological Organization last week urged countries to implement disaster warning systems to protect people against extreme weather.

The WMO said that in the past five decades, weather, water and climate-related hazards have killed more than 2 million people, with 90% of those deaths occurring in developing countries.

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