Ahead of COP30 — the United Nations climate summit which began November 6 in Brazil — Bill Gates released a memo targeted at the international climate community which argued that “although climate change will have serious consequences—particularly for people in the poorest countries—it will not lead to humanity’s demise” and called for a “strategic pivot” on climate change to prioritize “human welfare.” 

Bill Weir, CNN’s chief climate correspondent, correctly predicted how right-wing media would respond: “This will be used by detractors and denialists to say that the story is shifting.” 

On CNN News Central’s day one coverage of COP30, Erica Hill laid out some of the impact of Gates’ memo at a time when the United States is already turning its back on the “world’s largest climate summit”: 

In fact, in response to Gates' memo, Trump posted on Truth Social that “I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax” because Bill Gates had “finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue.” Gates said that Trump and other right-wing media reactions that echo his remarks are a “gigantic misreading of the memo,” while he has also pushed back at “climate scientists who said he was setting up a false dichotomy pitting climate efforts against foreign aid.”

The Associated Press reported that Bill Gates remarked: “If you think climate is not important, you won't agree with the memo. If you think climate is the only cause and apocalyptic, you won't agree with the memo.” 

But there it seems Gates was wrong. Right-wing media figures, who regularly downplay the climate crisis are likely among those who “think climate is not important,” and they are not disagreeing with the memo. They have celebrated it and used it to further downplay the climate crisis, attack climate science as “fraudulent,” and advance right-wing narratives and misinformation related to global warming, including denying sea level rise, suggesting that current climate change is unremarkable because the climate has been changing for billions of years, and pushing the “global cooling” myth. 

• The New York Post editorial board concluded, “If Gates wants any credit for belatedly seeing the light, he needs to put maximum effort into getting the left’s climate warriors to wake up, too.” [NY Post, 10/28/25]

• Former Fox News host John Stossel used Bill Gates’ memo to push his climate change denial content on social media, writing, “Welcome to the club, Bill. Here 3 climate scientists debunk several of the doomsday myths.” Stossel shared one of his videos featuring three climate skeptics, Willie Soon, David Legates, and Patrick Michaels, from an event at The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that has received funding from fossil fuel interests. [Twitter/X, 10/28/25; Media Matters, 1/16/24, 8/14/25; NPR, 9/12/20; Desmog; accessed 11/10/25]

• Hannity.com: “CLIMATE KOOK FLIPS! Bill Gates Suggests Rethinking Climate Change 'Doomsday Outlook'” [Hannity.com, 10/28/25]

• Fox host Jimmy Failla claimed that Gates’ memo proves climate change is a “grift” and pushed the misleading narrative that the climate is always changing. Failla continued: “What an about face. And it really gives up the whole entire grift we always knew it was. It drives me crazy because, you know this, the movement has not only changed again but changed in name three times before we got here. We were going to freeze to death in the ‘70s. Can you give me some money? We were going to melt in the ‘80s. Can you give me a few bucks? Then they were like, we're not freezing or melting, but the weather changes every day. How about a couple of bucks.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/29/25; climatefactcheck.org,
  6/22/22]

• Glenn Beck, founder of TheBlaze, wrote on his website that Gates did a “strategic pivot” because “the ruling class” finds AI “more useful than fear of the weather.” “Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people,” he later wrote. [Glennbeck.com, 
  10/29/25]

• In an interview with Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt, conspiracy theorist and U.S. Agency for Global Media senior adviser Kari Lake said, “When we get documents declassified on the climate hoax, he’s probably trying to get ahead of what happens then.” [Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 10/29/25; Media Matters, 12/12/24]

• On America’s Newsroom, co-host Bill Hemmer used the memo to falsely claim that “rising sea levels just ain’t happening.” “He says it will not lead to the humanities demise. … Maybe an asteroid will, but the rising sea levels just ain’t happening as Al Gore warned us back in 2005.” The World Economic Forum has said that “rising sea levels caused by climate change are impacting 1 billion people worldwide,” while “2024 saw an unexpectedly fast rising of sea levels, which are already unprecedented.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/29/25; World Economic Forum, 3/25/25]

• On Outnumbered, Fox News contributor Kaylee McGhee White said “climate change doomerism” was a ploy to “drive young adults … to leftist activism.” “This is the least surprising development ever. I think that the climate change doomerism, it was always a ploy, the real purpose of which was to drive young adults my age into leftist activism, that is all it was a vehicle for. And you know, what’s frustrating about this is Bill Gates is suddenly switching his position, but there is no new science behind." [Fox News, Outnumbered, 10/29/25]

• Fox’s Will Cain hosted Alex Epstein, author of the petroleum-promoting book Fossil Future, and suggested that fossil fuel advocacy is the “potential explanations for the change of heart of Bill Gates.” He claimed, “It is really most of the thoughtful scientists and thinkers through the last several hundred years who have understood the power of fossil fuels and economic growth in helping the vast majority of people across the world. Maybe that finally broke through to Bill Gates. Maybe just seeing the writing on the wall in modern America and under President Donald Trump.” [Fox News, The Will Cain Show, 10/29/25; Media Matters, 11/4/25]

• On The Five, Greg Gutfeld claimed that “people were told to stop having kids” and that Gates' shift is akin to admitting the “climate models … are fraudulent.” Gutfeld said, “It was a lie that impacted the mental health of generations and the physical health of a civilization. People were told to stop having kids. If you had kids you were hurting the planet. But it is hopeful that Gates and others are ceding to reality. We saw it happen already. Nobody is talking about data anymore because the data, the climate models, they are finally admitting are fraudulent, they were retrofitted so that they matched the results they were getting, and now that is out in the open.” [Fox News, The Five, 10/29/25]

•  Fox host Joey Jones claimed that Gates’ memo meant that Trump “won the climate change war.” “I think Trump has won another war. He won the climate change war now. Americans are coming around. You want to talk about petroleum products, think about how much oil is used to make all of those syringes for all of those vaccines during Covid. I mean just the impact and imprint of petroleum on our lives is endless,” Jones claimed. [Fox News, The Five, 10/29/25]

• Contributor Katie Pavlich told Fox Business’ Kudlow that she wants “reparations for damage this guy [Bill Gates] did on the climate change front.” She claimed, “There were years of groups that were funded by Bill Gates, foreigners doing fact checks on conservative web sites like TownHall, demonetizing us for talking about climate change and that it’s not going to destroy humanity and in fact a lot of the science has been bought and paid for and has been debunked on this issue. I would get laughed at when I would point out I am from Arizona, and you can find sea shells, fossils at the top of the Grand Canyon because yes, climate change has been happening for billions of years.” [Fox Business, Kudlow, 10/29/25]

• Frequent Fox guest and climate denier Marc Morano on Fox Business’ The Evening Edit suggested that Bill Gates “knew” all along that climate change was nonsense. “Bill Gates knew in the year 2000 that the climate agenda was complete bleep. He knew in 2010 it was nonsense, he knew in 2020 it was nonsense, but only in 2025 is he willing to tell the truth. And the reason is he needs connections. He needs energy.” [Fox Business, The Evening Edit, 
  10/30/25; Washington Post, 9/16/16; Media Matters, 12/17/12; 5/22/19]

• Newsmax host Rob Finnerty falsely claimed that Gates is “saying that it’s [climate change] not real. Finnerty said, “Now think about what Democrats have done to all of us in reaction to the climate hysteria created by people like Bill Gates over the last five decades: wind farms, electric cars, carbon footprint, bike lanes, electric buses, eating less meat, renewable energy. We could go on all night and all of it was total garbage. … Bill Gates, who's been right there with always-wrong Al Gore warning us of impending doom for years now, saying that it's not real.” [Newsmax, Finnerty, 10/31/25]

• Right-wing streamer Zack Hoyt, known online as Asmongold, told his audience that Bill Gates no longer believes in climate change and quotes Trump’s Truth Social Post. “You know who else doesn't believe in climate change recently? Bill Gates. Bill Gates has dramatically changed his position on climate change, acknowledging for the first time that there is no doomsday risk for, of global warming. … We just won the war on the climate change hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely wrong on the issue.” [YouTube, AsmongoldTV, 11/1/25]

• Fox & Friends Weekend guest and Republican strategist Mehek Cooke claimed Gates shifted on climate change because he realized “we're not going to pay for this green climate change hoax.” She said, “We're not all going to die at the end of the day. So farmers can increase their herd share, I can eat more meat. I mean, all the things that Bill Gates said to the American people, he realized he was losing because we're not going to pay for this green climate change hoax. I also think he's listening to President Trump. It's about innovation and not more regulation.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/2/25]

• Power The Future Founder and frequent right-wing media guest Daniel Turner wrote that Bill Gates’ “climate crusade was always a grift.” [Twitter/X, 11/3/25; Media Matters, 5/8/24;
  3/25/24]

During a segment on CNN News Central, Bill Weir highlighted concerns from “the chorus of top climate scientists who spent the week trying to debunk the billionaire's confusing new message that rich cities will be immune from the worst effects and that technology can save us.” 

Additionally, The Guardian pointed out that a number of climate scientists have criticized Gates for using “‘straw man’ arguments about the threat to humanity and ‘false dichotomies’ between spending on climate or aid for the poor.”  

• In comments to NBC, Jeffrey Sachs, who leads Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, “called the memo ‘pointless, vague, unhelpful and confusing,'" adding that there’s “no reason to pit poverty reduction versus climate transformation.’" [NBC, 10/28/25]

• Climate scientist Michael Mann has been outspoken about Gates’ memo, pointing out that it coincided with the landfall of the  climate-driven Hurricane Melissa and that it was defended by former Fox News star Megyn Kelly. Mann also wrote a rebuttal of the memo in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, making the point that “Gates’ latest missive … plays like a game of climate change-diminishing bingo, drawing upon nearly every one of the tropes embraced by professional climate disinformers.” [Twitter/X, 10/28/25, 10/29/25; The Bulletin, 10/31/25; The New York Times, 11/6/25]

• Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, said of the memo: “Despite agreeing with some points therein, I still think its framing is fundamentally flawed and thus also its key conclusions.” [Twitter/X, 11/3/25]

• Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather wrote: “There are a lot of things I agree with in Bill Gates’ new memo on climate change. … But in other areas I feel that it needlessly sets up a conflict between laudable goals.” Hausfather said that “we can both mitigate emissions and alleviate poverty, disease, and hunger. While there are some tradeoffs it is more a question of policy priority than a zero sum game. Similarly, I feel that Gates is a bit too cavalier in his treatment of climate risk.” [The Climate Brink, 11/5/25]

• Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, also criticized Gates’ memo. She said, “‘I have not seen a single scientific paper that ever posited that the human race would become extinct … it’s a straw man, the way he’s proposing it.” [The Guardian, 11/6/25]