The world is better off for Bill Gates, the climate debate may not be

The timing for Bill Gates’ volte-face on climate could probably have been better.

As Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica having been supercharged in superheated Carribean waters, Gates published a memo arguing that global warming, a cause that has been central to his philanthropy for decades, “is not the biggest threat to the lives and livelihoods of people in poor countries, and it won’t be in the future.”

By the time his memo was being debated in climate circles, about 750,000 people in Jamaica – GDP per capita $US7486 ($11,335) – had been evacuated.

In his memo, named “Three Tough Truths About Climate” and written in the run-up to the coming COP climate talks in Brazil, Gates argues that climate change is a “serious problem” but not a civilisation threat, and that while it s