Allison Fisher at MMFA:
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”: [President Trump, of course, has called climate change a, quote, con job. That's despite the overwhelming evidence of its reality and the very real threat it poses. President Trump seemed to get an assist recently from Bill Gates, who argued that resources actually should be shifted away from the battle against climate change. It's a move that experts have said is just flat out wrong.] 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.”
Right-wing media celebrate Bill Gates’ shift on climate, misrepresent his memo to downplay the climate crisis
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.
Climate-denying right-wing media freakos misinterpreted a memo from Bill Gates on climate change to peddle more climate denialism absurdities.
