When the World Changes, So Should Our Priorities

Bill Gates has taken plenty of heat over the last few days for suggesting that the world’s policy priorities might need to shift—that as the climate picture improves and global development is in a funding crisis, maybe it’s time to look again at what’s most neglected. In some corners of the climate world, that sounds almost heretical. In various outlets, his change of views is interpreted as being a politically motivated reversal of prior opinions, as contradicting the UN secretary general or as a “stunning claim” about climate science.

But as researchers dedicated to climate, global health, and development policy, we think he’s probably right—and that the way he reexamined his priorities should be celebrated, not vilified.

At Founders Pledge, we advise entrepreneurs on high-impact philanthropy across multiple causes. One of us is a climate philanthropist trying to find and fund the most effective opportunities in climate, while the other leads our research and grantmaking on global health and development, so many of the trade-offs and vexing questions Gates discusses are deeply familiar to our work.

What Gates is doing in his memo—publicly reconsidering and changing his priorities in response to a major change in global aid funding—should be normal and celebrated, rather than perceived as an attack on the climate community. Our moral commitments should be to broad goals, like building a future where all humans can thrive. When we tie our identities too tightly to specific causes, we lose sight of our ultimate goal and make it impossible to have honest debates without getting defensive.

Bill Gates is right to point out that the story of the past decade is one of extraordinary climate progress. Clean energy is cheaper than anyone dared hope, private capital is flooding into decarbonization, and many parts of the transition—towards renewables, electrification of light-duty transport and heating—are locked in to happen, not least because the world’s largest manufacturing economy is deeply committed to their expansion.

And, yes, climate policy is under its most serious political threat in a decade. Yet, this challenging moment in climate action does not reverse the general trajectory.

A few years ago, climate was one of the most urgent and underfunded causes imaginable. That’s no longer true. There are still blind spots — neglected innovation areas, hard-to-abate sectors, places where early-stage philanthropy can punch above its weight — but the overall landscape is crowded and well-capitalized. We saw this in action when Bill Gates pulled out of climate philanthropy earlier this year and, by and large, others stepped up to compensate for his exit, with many efforts now reconstituted and having found new funders and institutional homes.

And, we also see that while climate as a motivation for policy and action is in retreat, increasing energy demand might ironically do more for reducing emissions–by forcing policy makers to seriously grapple with unlocking and innovating on clean energy–than climate ever did. The momentum towards decarbonization is slowed, but not stopped, and much climate progress might happen under a different guise.

When progress takes hold, the right response isn’t to stop caring; it’s to update our mental model of what’s most needed at any given time.

Policy and philanthropy should evolve as the world does. When a field experiences a major funding shock, we need to ask hard questions about where the need is greatest. When you've built your career around a particular cause, it’s natural to resist those questions — they can feel like attacks on the causes we’ve invested our identities in. But the challenge is to look past momentum and stay loyal not to a specific organization or even a specific cause, but to impact.

Both climate and global health are under assault right now. Climate funding remains necessary, and one of us spends most of his waking hours seeking the most effective ways to spend tens of millions of philanthropic dollars through the Founders Pledge Climate Fund—funding everything from bipartisan clean energy coalitions to protecting critical programs at the Department of Energy. But we also recognize that the crisis in global health development means millions of people depend on systems that are being dismantled. We have the freedom—and the obligation—to tackle what is most pressing in a deeply imperfect world.

If we care about doing the most good, it’s time to look again at where our next dollar can matter most. When the world changes, the best thing we can do is change with it. And doing so publicly and transparently should be celebrated.