Bill Gates Urges Rich Nations to Fulfil Climate Change Pledges – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Micrsosoft’s recently admitted their carbon footprint has risen 30% since 2020.

Global Net-Zero Targets in Jeopardy as Rich Countries Lag Behind

By Felicity Bradstock – May 11, 2025, 10:00 AM CDT

• Bill Gates calls for wealthy nations to prioritize net-zero emissions, emphasizing their responsibility to combat climate change.
• Despite global net-zero pledges, rich countries lag in decarbonisation, risking the goals of the Paris Agreement.
• Gates highlights the need for innovation investments and stronger climate commitments from high-income nations.

Alongside environmentalists and climate scientists, Bill Gates is the latest public figure to call on high-income countries to do more to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. While reducing emissions in developing countries can be difficult, due to a lack of funding and infrastructure, meaning it could take several more years to expand the renewable energy capacity of certain regions, Western nations have no such excuse. 

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This week, Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, said that rich countries “owe it to the world” to achieve net-zero emissions, during the opening dinner of the Ecosperity sustainability event in Singapore. Gates is the chairman of the non-profit Gates Foundation, which provides funding for a wide range of causes, including climate-related projects. 

Speaking with Singapore’s Ambassador for Climate Action Ravi Menon, Gates stressed that high-income countries must achieve net zero even if the entire world cannot. “The notion that the entire world is going to get [to net zero] by 2050 is at this point not realistic,” said Gates. “There are levels of emissions that are small enough that the temperature worsening actually is not a problem,” he added. However, if rich nations can reach net zero, it demonstrates to other countries the potential to tackle the effects of the climate crisis. 

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Read more: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Global-Net-Zero-Targets-in-Jeopardy-as-Rich-Countries-Lag-Behind.html

Back in the real world, Microsoft’s carbon emissions are skyrocketing, up 40% since 2020.

To be fair, Bill has apparently sold most of his Microsoft shares, and now owns around 1% of Microsoft – though that 1% is still worth billions of dollars.

But given Bill is responsible for creating Microsoft, and people at Microsoft still pick up the phone when he calls, he could have said something in his speech to Ecosperity about how he personally financially benefits from the profits of a company with a soaring carbon footprint.

Bill could also have explained to Ecosperity why he appears to think it is OK for him personally to make money from a company with a skyrocketing carbon footprint, but believes that everyone else should knuckle down and make sacrifices to reduce their carbon footprints.

If anyone has a link to Bill Gates’ Ecosperity speech please post in comments. Ecosperity has so far published a playlist of four videos related to the event.

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