Part 1: Summary (6th Grade English Vocabulary)

By Bill Gates — published on Tuesday, Oct 28, 2025

“A new way to look at the problem — Three tough truths about climate — What I want everyone at COP30 to know.”

This article says that climate change is a big deal, but we’ve already made some good progress and we must keep working. It says we should not take money away from health or helping poor countries just to fight climate change. Instead, we should put people’s well-being at the center of our efforts.

First, the article explains a popular scary story about climate change: the idea that our whole civilization will fall apart soon. The author believes that story is wrong. He says people will still be able to live and go on with their lives in most places. What matters now is making smart choices and spending money where it helps most.

Next, the article shares three truths to guide us. One: Even if we try, global temperature will still go up by a lot by the year 2100 unless we do very big things. Two: To help the most people, the best investments are in clean energy, good farming, and health care — especially in poor countries. Three: We must measure our actions by how much they help people, not just how many emissions we cut.

The article also looks closely at five big areas that cause emissions: electricity, manufacturing (steel, cement), agriculture, transportation (cars, planes, ships), and buildings. It describes what technologies and companies are working on to make each area cleaner and better.

Then it says our world should not just focus on temperature numbers or emissions. It should focus on human welfare — giving everyone a fair chance to live well. That means helping poor countries build better farms, better health systems, and stronger buildings to deal with changing climate.

At the global meeting called COP 30 in Brazil, the author wants decision-makers to focus on two big actions:

1. Make the extra cost of clean technology (called the “Green Premium”) go to zero.

2. Use data and strong measurement to make sure each dollar spent does the most good for peoples’ lives.

In short: Climate change is real and important. But we should fight it in a way that also helps people today — especially those in the poorest places — and build a world where everyone can live a healthy and decent life.

Vocabulary List for Summary

• Climate change – The long-term change in Earth’s weather and temperature.

• Emissions – The gases released into the air, especially greenhouse gases that trap heat.

• Welfare – The well-being of people: their health, safety, happiness.

• Breakthrough – A big, important step forward or new discovery.

• Adaptation – Adjusting to new conditions (like changing weather) so you can cope.

• Agriculture – Farming: growing plants and raising animals for food.

• Zero-carbon – Producing energy or using technologies that don’t release carbon dioxide.

• Green Premium – The extra cost you pay for cleaner technology compared to dirty tech.

• Decarbonize – Reduce or remove carbon dioxide emissions from a process.

• Human development – The idea of improving people’s lives: health, income, education.

• Metric – A way of measuring or assessing something.

• Manufacturing – Making things in factories: steel, cement, cars, etc.

• Prosperity – Wealth and success; the state of doing well.

• Infrastructure – The basic systems of buildings, roads, power grids that a society uses.

• Scale – To expand something so it works for many people or places.

Part 2: Full Rewritten Article (6th Grade English Vocabulary)

By Bill Gates — published on Tuesday, Oct 28, 2025

A new way to look at the problem

Climate change is serious, but we already have made good progress. We must keep supporting the new ideas that will help the world reach zero emissions. We should not cut money for health and helping people develop — especially in poor countries — just to focus on climate change. It’s time to put human well-being at the center of our climate work, which means making clean technology cheap, improving farms, and improving health in poor places.

There is a scary story about climate change that says this: In a few decades, climate change will destroy civilization. We see scary signs today — heat waves and strong storms from rising global temperatures. It makes people say nothing is more important than stopping temperature rise.

But that scary story is wrong. Although climate change will bring big problems — especially for poor countries — it will not end humanity. Most people in most places will still be able to live and do well. Emissions are already going down, and with smart policies and investment, new technology will drive emissions much farther down.

Three tough truths about climate

The scary view is making many working on climate focus too much on short-term emissions goals. It pulls money away from the most helpful things we should be doing to help life in a warming world.

It’s not too late to change our view and our strategies. The global climate meeting COP 30, held in Brazil next month, is a great place to start. The Brazilian leadership is putting climate adaptation and human development high on the agenda.

This is a chance to focus on a measurement that should matter more than just emissions and temperature change: improving lives. Our main goal should be to prevent suffering — especially for people in the hardest places living in the poorest countries.

Although climate change will hurt poor people more than anyone else, for most of them it won’t be the only or even the biggest threat. The biggest problems are poverty and disease — as they always have been. Knowing this helps us use our limited resources for the greatest effect for the most vulnerable people.

I know some climate advocates will disagree and call me a hypocrite because of my own carbon footprint (which I have fully offset with legitimate carbon credits). They might think I’m arguing we should not take climate change seriously.

To be clear: Climate change is a very important problem. It must be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition. Every bit of temperature warming we prevent is hugely valuable because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people’s lives.

I have been learning about warming — and investing billions in new ideas to reduce it — for over 20 years. I work with scientists and innovators who are committed to avoiding a climate disaster and making cheap, reliable clean energy available to everyone. Ten years ago, some of them joined me in creating Breakthrough Energy, an investment platform whose sole purpose is to accelerate clean energy innovation and deployment. We have supported more than 150 companies so far, many of which have grown into major businesses. We are helping build a growing network of thousands of innovators working on every part of the problem.

Government policies can speed up the innovations we need.

My views on climate change are shaped by 25 years of work on health and development, especially at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation’s top priority is health and development in poor countries, and we look at climate mostly through that lens. This has led us to support many climate-smart innovations, especially in farming, in places where extreme weather is doing the worst damage.

COP 30 is happening at a time when it’s especially important to get the most value out of every dollar spent on helping the poorest. The pool of money available to help them — which was already less than 1 percent of rich countries’ budgets at its highest — is shrinking as rich countries cut their aid budgets and low-income countries carry heavy debt. Even proven efforts like providing life-saving vaccines for all the world’s children are not fully funded. Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance will have 25 percent less money for the next five years compared to the past five years. We must think carefully and with numbers about how to use the time and money we have for the best use.

So I urge everyone at COP 30 to ask: How do we make sure aid spending delivers the greatest possible benefit for the most vulnerable people? Is the money marked for climate being spent on the right things?

I believe the answer is no. Sometimes it feels like any effort to fight climate change is treated as equally good as any other. As a result, less-effective projects are diverting money and attention from efforts that will have more effect on the human condition: namely, making it affordable to get rid of all greenhouse-gas emissions and reducing extreme poverty by improving farming and health.

In short: Climate change, disease, and poverty are all major problems. We should deal with them in proportion to the suffering they cause. And we should use data to maximize the impact of every action we take.

Even if we do a lot, warming will still happen

Even if the world acts only moderately to limit climate change, current projections say that by the year 2100 the Earth’s average temperature will probably be between 2 °C and 3 °C higher than it was in 1850.

That number is well above the 1.5 °C goal that countries committed to at the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. In fact, between now and 2040 we will fall far short of the world’s climate goals. One reason is that the world’s demand for energy is going up — more than doubling by 2050.

From the standpoint of improving lives, using more energy is a good thing because it is so closely tied with economic growth. This chart shows countries’ energy use and their income. More energy use is a key part of prosperity.

Unfortunately, in this case what is good for prosperity is bad for the environment. Although wind and solar have gotten cheaper and better, we still don’t have all the tools we need to meet growing energy demand without increasing carbon emissions.

But we will have the tools we need if we focus on innovation. With the right investments and policies in place, over the next ten years we will have new affordable zero-carbon technologies ready to scale. Add in the impact of the tools we already have, and by the middle of this century emissions will be lower and the gap between poor countries and rich countries will be greatly reduced.

I wasn’t sure this would be possible when Breakthrough Energy was started in 2015 after the Paris agreement. Since then, the progress of the companies and others and the boost now being given by artificial intelligence have made me confident that these advances will be ready to scale.

All countries will be able to build with low-carbon cement and steel. Almost all new cars will be electric. Farms will be more productive and less damaging, using fertilizer made without emissions. Power grids will deliver clean electricity reliably, and energy costs will go down.

<Photo: Energy innovation in developing country clinic>

Even with these innovations though, the build-up of emissions will cause warming and many people will be affected. We will see what we might call “latitude creep”: For example in North America, Iowa will start to feel more like Texas. Texas will start to feel more like northern Mexico. Although there will be climate migration, most people in countries near the equator won’t be able to relocate — they will face more heat waves, stronger storms, and bigger fires. Some outdoor work will have to pause during the hottest hours of the day, and governments will have to invest in cooling centers and better warning systems for extreme heat and weather events.

Every time governments rebuild — whether it’s homes in Los Angeles or highways in Delhi — they’ll have to build smarter: fire-resistant materials, rooftop sprinklers, better land use to keep fires from spreading, and infrastructure designed to handle harsh winds and heavy rain. It won’t be cheap, but in most cases it will be possible. Sadly, this ability to adapt is not shared equally around the world.

So why am I optimistic that innovation will help curb climate change? For one thing, because it already has.

You probably know about improvements like better electric vehicles, much cheaper solar and wind power, and batteries to store electricity from renewables. What you may not know is how large the impact of these advances is on emissions.

Ten years ago, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that by 2040 the world would be emitting 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. Now, just a decade later, the IEA’s forecast has dropped to 30 billion, and it’s projecting that 2050 emissions will be even lower.

Read that again: In the past ten years, we have cut projected emissions by more than 40 percent.

This progress is not part of the common view of climate change, but it should be. What made it possible is that the Green Premium — the cost­difference between clean and dirty ways of doing something — has reached zero or become negative for solar, wind, power storage, and electric vehicles. By and large, they are now as cheap as or even cheaper than their fossil-fuel counterparts.

<Photo: Solar panels + wind turbines cost curve>

Of course, to reach net-zero emissions we need more breakthroughs. This will become even more important if new evidence shows that climate change will be much worse than what current climate models predict, because we will need to lower the Green Premium faster and speed up the transition to a zero-emission economy.

Luckily, humans’ ability to invent is better than it ever has been.

Breakthrough Energy focuses its new investment on the areas of innovation that still have large positive Green Premiums. Below I describe the state of play in the five sectors of the economy that are responsible for nearly all carbon emissions. I’ll cover highlights and challenges — one common theme is the difficulty of scaling fast — and I’ll include some of the companies Breakthrough Energy works with so you can see how much activity there is in each sector.

Electricity (28 percent of global emissions)

Making electricity is the second biggest source of emissions, but it might be the most important: To decarbonize the other sectors, we will have to electrify a lot of things that currently use fossil fuels. We need more innovation in renewables, transmission, and other ways to generate and store electricity.

• New systems for wind power can make more energy using less land, and advances in geothermal mean it can be used in more places around the world. (Examples: Fervo, Baseload Capital, Airloom)
• Companies are testing super efficient power lines that can carry much more electricity than older cables. (TS Conductor, VEIR)
• We need to keep reducing the cost of clean energy that works all the time, including next-generation nuclear fission and fusion plants. More than half today’s emissions from electricity could only be removed by these so-called “firm” sources, yet they still have a large Green Premium (well over 50 percent). I am optimistic we can remove the Green Premium for fission; a new nuclear plant is under construction in Wyoming. And fusion, which promises an almost unlimited supply of cheap, clean electricity, has moved from science fiction to near commercial. (TerraPower, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Type One Energy)

<Photo: Geothermal plant + wind farm>

Manufacturing (30 percent of global emissions)

When someone says they know how to cut emissions, the first question to ask is: What’s your plan for cement and steel? They are key to modern life, and they are hard to decarbonize globally because making them with fossil fuels is so cheap.

• Zero-emissions steel exists today. It uses electricity; so if you can get clean electricity at low cost, you end up with clean steel that is cheaper than the usual kind. The technology still needs to reach many markets and the companies must build more capacity. (Boston Metal, Electra)
• Clean cement has similar problems. Several companies have found ways to make it without emissions, but it takes years to get into the worldwide market and scale up production. (Brimstone, Ecocem, CarbonCure, Terra CO2, Fortera)
• One of the biggest surprises in the past decade is the discovery of geologic hydrogen. Eventually, hydrogen will be widely used to make clean fuels and will help with clean steel and cement. Today we make it from fossil fuels or by using electricity on water, but geologic hydrogen is generated by the Earth itself. Companies have already shown they can find it underground; now the challenge is to extract it well. (Koloma, Mantle8, Electric Hydrogen)
• Companies are starting to roll out ways to either capture carbon from factories that now emit it, like cement and steel plants, or remove it directly from the air and store it permanently. If captured carbon becomes cheap enough, we could even use it to make things like sustainable aviation fuel. (Heirloom, Graphyte, MissionZero, Deep Sky)

<Photo: Clean steel factory>

Agriculture (19 percent of global emissions)

A large part of emissions from farming comes from just two things: the making and use of fertilizer, and grazing livestock that release methane.

• Farmers can already buy a replacement for synthetic fertilizer that has zero emissions, and another that turns the methane in manure into organic fertilizer. Both are already at negative Green Premium (so cheaper). Now the challenge is to make large amounts and get farmers to use them. (Pivot Bio, Windfall Bio)
• Additives to cattle feed that stop livestock from producing methane are nearly cheap enough for farmers, and a vaccine that does the same job has already been shown to work. It now is moving into the next stage of development. (Rumin8, ArkeaBio)
• Another source of methane is rice farming, one of the world’s most important staple foods. Some companies help rice farmers around the world pick methods that both lower methane and increase crop yields. (Rize)
• One tricky problem is that some of the nitrogen in fertilizer seeps into the air as nitrous oxide, a very strong greenhouse gas. It is very dilute, which makes it hard to capture.

<Photo: Rice field + biotech fertilizer>

Transportation (16 percent of global emissions)

Nearly one in four cars sold in 2024 was electric, and more than 10 percent of all vehicles in the world are electric. In some countries, including the U.S., they still have disadvantages, like long charging times and too few public charging stations, which keeps them from being as practical as gas-powered cars. Also, cars and trucks are only part of this sector, which also includes hard-to-clean activities like shipping and aviation.

• Plane emissions are projected to double by 2050, and clean jet fuel still has a Green Premium over 100 percent. Today we know of only two cost-effective ways to make it: use algae fuel, or make synthetic fuel with very cheap hydrogen. Companies are in early work on both.
• As more transportation goes electric, the demand for batteries will grow, so companies have made ways to make them cheaper and better. (KoBold Metals, GeologicAI, Redwood, Stratus Materials)

<Photo: Electric truck + battery factory>

Buildings (7 percent of global emissions)

Heating and cooling buildings is the smallest slice of global emissions today, but it will grow a lot with more cities and more need for air-conditioning.

• Electric heat pumps are already widely available. They are up to five times more efficient than boilers and furnaces, and often cheaper. But there aren’t enough skilled workers in the world to install them. Next-generation, extra-efficient heat pumps are already available, and ones that are easier to install are being made. (Dandelion, Blue Frontier, Conduit Tech)
• Other zero-Green-Premium products are available, including building sealants and super-efficient windows. But like so many clean-tech solutions, reaching full scale takes time. (Aeroseal, Luxwall)

<Photo: Modern energy-efficient house>

Human welfare matters more than temperature

The global temperature number doesn’t tell us how good people’s lives are. If droughts kill your crops, can you still buy food? When there is a very hot wave, can you go somewhere cool? When floods spread disease, can the local clinic treat everyone who’s sick?

Quality of life sounds like a vague idea, but it isn’t. One helpful tool is the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), which gives a number from 0 to 1 showing how well people in a country are doing. A higher number means better outcomes.

If you look at the HDI list of countries, the differences jump out. Switzerland has the highest HDI: 0.96. South Sudan has the lowest: 0.33. The 30 countries with the lowest HDI scores are home to one out of every eight people on Earth, but they make only about one-third of one percent of global GDP. They have the highest poverty and the worst health outcomes. A child in South Sudan is 39 times more likely to die before age five than a child in Sweden.

This huge difference is why our climate strategies need to prioritize human welfare. It may seem obvious — who could be against improving people’s lives? — but sometimes human welfare is put aside while lowering emissions becomes the goal instead. That can lead to bad results.

Climate actions must prioritize helping people in low-income countries.

For example: A few years ago, the government of one low-income country tried to cut emissions by banning synthetic fertilizers. Farmers’ yields dropped, there was much less food, and prices soared. The country entered a crisis because it valued lowering emissions above other important things.

Sometimes the pressure comes from outside. For example, multilateral lenders were pushed by wealthy shareholders to stop financing fossil-fuel projects, hoping to limit emissions by leaving oil, gas, and coal in the ground. This pressure has almost no effect on global emissions, but it has made it harder for low-income countries to get low-interest loans for power plants that would bring reliable electricity to their homes, schools, and clinics.

Granted, things like these are complicated, since burning fossil fuels can help people now at the cost of making climate worse in the future. But remember: Climate change is not the biggest threat to the lives and livelihoods of people in poor countries — and it won’t be in the future. In the next section I’ll explain why and what this means for our climate strategies.

A few years ago, researchers at the University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab did a thought experiment: What happens to the projected number of deaths from climate change when you include the expected economic growth of low-income countries? The answer: The deaths fall by more than 50 percent.

This result is exciting because it suggests a way forward. Since projected economic growth in poor countries will cut climate deaths by half, faster and broader growth will cut deaths even more. And economic growth is closely tied to public health. So the faster people become healthy and make more money, the more lives we can save.

When you view the problem this way, it becomes easier to pick the best uses of money in climate adaptation — they are the areas where finance can do the most to fight poverty and improve health.

At the top of that list is improving farming.

Most poor countries still have mostly farming economies. The average smallholder farmer in those countries has between two and four acres and makes about $2 a day. And she gets relatively little from her fields — about 80 percent less per acre than an American farmer. A single drought or flood can wipe her out for one whole season.

<Photo: Small-scale farmer in developing country>

New crop types and other innovations are helping farmers grow more food despite the changing climate.

Phones are already making a big difference. Farmers use their phones to get advice on what to plant, when to plant, and when to fertilize, all tailored by artificial intelligence to their soil, weather, and local conditions. In India, during the recent summer monsoon, around 40 million farmers in 13 states got a message warning the rains would come early and then pause. That message alone saved millions of acres of crops.

And the technology is improving quickly: In the next five years, a low-income farmer will be able to get better advice than the richest farmers have today.

Advances in breeding crops are another big win, and Kenya has set an excellent example. Nearly 20 years ago, a group of African agricultural scientists saw that hotter, drier seasons were stressing staple crops like maize. With support from the Gates Foundation and others, they developed a variety that could do well in the changing climate. It worked: The new seeds gave Kenyan farmers 66 percent more maize — enough to feed a family of six for a year and still have $880 worth of crops to sell. That is the same as five months of income for them.

The list of innovations keeps going. For example: Researchers helped farmers find breeds of cattle that are naturally tougher in hard conditions. And the new kind of zero-emissions fertilizers I mentioned earlier are being adapted for conditions in low-income countries. Scientists in India found that when smallholder farmers added these bio-fertilizers to their fields, their yields went up as much as 20 percent.

<Photo: Bio-fertilizer in action on a farm>

If you measure climate action by how much it helps per dollar spent, improving farming and health is at the top of the list.

Improvements like these must go hand in hand with improvements in health. I think most people when they think of how climate affects health talk about heat waves and natural disasters. So let’s start there and look at the facts.

Extremely hot weather now causes about 500,000 deaths every year. Despite what you might think from the news, though, the number has been going down for some time — mainly because more people can now afford air conditioners. And surprisingly, very cold weather kills far more — nearly ten times more people each year than heat does. As for what will happen in the future: Heat-related deaths will go up, cold-related deaths will go down. The best current estimates say that the net effect will be a global rise in deaths tied to temperature, and most of that increase will be in developing countries.

The story with natural disasters is similar. In the past century, direct deaths from disasters like drowning in floods have dropped about 90 percent to between 40,000 and 50,000 people a year. This drop is mostly thanks to better warning systems and stronger buildings.

<Photo: Flood rescue + climate resilient building>

Keeping families healthy must be a bigger part of our climate plans.

But indirect deaths from natural disasters haven’t followed the same pattern of decline. In many cases today, people caught in storms and floods are more likely to die from a waterborne disease than from drowning. When floodwaters contaminate drinking water, they create perfect breeding places for diseases like cholera and rotavirus, which cause diarrhea and are especially deadly for children. More floods mean more deaths from diarrhea.

But germs don’t wait for storms or floods to strike—they infect people as part of everyday life in low-income countries. Sadly, they are not the only ongoing health threat.

If you count the other main causes of death in poor countries — malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, and problems from childbirth — poverty-linked health problems kill about 8 million people a year.

And the burden is even worse when you include health issues that don’t kill people but make them too sick to work, go to school, or take care of their kids. If a pregnant woman is already under-nourished and then loses her food because of a flood, she’s even more likely to have a premature baby, and her baby is more likely to start life underweight. But if she is well-nourished, she and her baby have a much better chance to stay healthy.

<Photo: Clinic in flood-affected area + pregnant woman receiving care>

I’m not saying we should ignore deaths tied to temperature because disease is a bigger problem. In fact, temperature-related deaths are one of the reasons cheap clean energy is so important — because it will make heating and air conditioning more affordable everywhere.

What I am saying is that we should deal with disease and extreme weather in proportion to the suffering they cause, and we should go after the underlying conditions that leave people open to them. While we need to limit the number of very hot and very cold days, we also need to make sure fewer people live in poverty and poor health so that extreme weather isn’t such a threat to them.

<Photo: AI health worker in remote clinic>

Artificial intelligence has already begun to help. For example today, AI-powered devices let health workers give ultrasound exams to pregnant women in low-income settings — a big step that means many more women will get the care they need to survive childbirth and deliver a healthy baby. AI is also helping researchers develop new vaccines and treatments faster, adding to the long list of affordable life-saving tools we already have, including vaccines, fortified foods, mosquito nets, and treatments for diseases like AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

The benefits of improving health and farming go beyond climate resilience. For example, as child survival rates go up, something surprising happens: People choose to have smaller families. When this happens, governments of poor countries can invest more in schools and clinics, roads and ports, sanitary systems and power grids. These things in turn make it easier to improve health and raise incomes. It is a remarkable positive cycle set in motion by better health and farming.

What I want everyone at COP 30 to know

In this memo I’ve argued that we should measure success by how much we help people rather than just by global temperature numbers. And that our success depends on putting energy, health, and farming at the heart of our strategies. Development (helping people and countries grow) is not only about adjusting to a warmer climate — development is adaptation.

Under Brazil’s leadership, adaptation and human development will get more attention at COP 30 than at any other COP. That’s a good first step.

For COP 30 and beyond, I see two priorities that I hope the climate community will adopt:

1. Drive the Green Premium to zero.
At every COP, governments take turns announcing commitments to lower emissions. Unfortunately, this process doesn’t tell us which technologies are needed, whether we have them yet, or what it will take to get them. This is why, in addition to country-by-country commitments, every COP should have high-level discussions and commitments based on the five sectors. Policies and innovations in each sector need more visibility. Representatives from each of the five sectors should report on how far they’ve come toward affordable and practical zero-carbon innovations, using the Green Premium as their yardstick.

Government leaders would get a view of whether they can meet their commitments with current tools. They would see, sector by sector, which technologies they can start using now, which they should plan to roll out soon, and which still need government action to reduce the Green Premium. They would talk to their peers from other countries about working together on promising breakthroughs that will help everyone meet their commitments.

If you’re a policymaker, you can bring this sector-by-sector focus on the Green Premium to your government’s work. You can also protect funding for clean technologies and the policies that help them. This is not just a public good: The countries that win the race to develop these breakthroughs will create jobs, hold great economic power for decades to come, and become more energy independent.

If you’re an activist, you can call for steps that make clean alternatives in every sector as cheap and practical as their fossil-fuel counterparts. The public is more likely to switch to clean technology when it’s cheaper and better than fossil fuels.

If you’re a young scientist or entrepreneur, this is a moment to rethink what it means to change the world. The people working on clean materials today will have a massive impact on human welfare. If you need pointers, the Climate Tech Map published last month by Breakthrough Energy and other partners is a great guide to the technologies that are essential for decarbonizing the economy.

If you’re an investor, I encourage you to invest in companies working on high-impact clean technologies that will eventually have no Green Premium. I’m investing more of my own money into these efforts because reducing the Green Premium to zero demands more private capital. It’s also a great investment in what will be the biggest growth industry of the 21st century. (I will give any profits I make from my investments to the Gates Foundation.)

2. Be rigorous about measuring impact.
I wish there was enough money to fund every good climate idea. Unfortunately, there isn’t, and we must make trade-offs so we can deliver the most benefit with limited resources. In these circumstances, our choices should be guided by data-based analysis that finds the highest return for human welfare.

Vaccines are the clear champion of lives saved per dollar spent. Since 2000, Gavi has spent $22 billion to vaccinate children in poor countries, preventing 19 million deaths. That means Gavi can save a life for a little more than $1,000. Other estimates find that vaccines cost less than $5,000 per life saved. And vaccines become even more important in a warming world because children who aren’t dying of measles or whooping cough will have a better chance of surviving a heat wave or a drought.

Every effort in the world’s climate agenda should undergo the same kind of analysis and be given priority by its ability to save and improve lives cost-effectively. Malaria prevention, for example, is nearly as strong as vaccines in cost per life saved. Energy innovation is a good buy not just because it saves lives now, but because it will provide cheap clean energy and eventually lower emissions, which will have large benefits for human welfare in the future. Many of the best investments in farming innovation will be shown at COP 30 in a showcase hosted by the Gates Foundation, the Brazilian government, and other partners.

This moment reminds me of another time when I called for a new direction. Thirty years ago, when I was running Microsoft, I wrote a long memo to employees about a major strategic shift we had to make: embracing the internet in every product we made. It seems obvious now, given how much we all use the internet, but at the time it was just becoming common. If we had not changed our strategy, our success would have been at risk.

For a company, it’s relatively easy to make a shift like that because there is one leader in charge. By contrast, there is no CEO who sets the world’s climate priorities or strategies — and that is exactly how it should be. These decisions are rightly made by the global climate community.

So I urge that community, at COP 30 and beyond, to make a strategic shift: prioritize the things that have the greatest impact on human welfare. It is the best way to make sure that everyone has a chance to live a healthy and productive life — no matter where they were born, and no matter what kind of climate they were born into.

Part 3: Vocabulary List for the Rewritten Article

Here are key words from the article rewrite and their definitions:

• adaptation – The process of changing to fit new or tough conditions.

• agriculture – Farming: growing plants and raising animals for food.

• aid – Help, especially in money or resources, given to people or countries in need.

• analyze – To study something carefully and in detail.

• attractive – Something that draws attention or is liked because it is good.

• balanced – Fair or well-adjusted; giving equal importance to parts.

• benefit – Something that is good or helpful.

• capture – To take or trap something (such as carbon from the air).

• climate change – Long-term change in Earth’s weather, temperature, and environment.

• committed – Promised or dedicated to a cause.

• condition – The state of something; how good or bad something is.

• contaminate – To make something dirty or unsafe (like water) by adding harmful things.

• data – Numbers or facts used to study and understand something.

• decarbonize – To reduce or remove carbon dioxide from a process or system.

• development – Growth or improvement in countries so people have better lives.

• disease – An illness or health problem.

• diversify – To change so something has different parts; in economy means many types.

• efficient – Working well with little waste; doing a job with less effort.

• emissions – Gases or other things sent out into the air, usually harmful ones from factories or cars.

• entrepreneur – A person who starts new businesses, especially with new ideas.

• equity – Fairness or equal treatment for people.

• evaluate – To judge or decide how good or bad something is.

• fertilizer – A chemical or natural substance added to soil to help plants grow.

• focus – To give attention to something.

• fuel – Material (coal, oil, gas, etc.) burned to make energy.

• goal – Something you aim to reach.

• greenhouse gas – A gas that traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere (like carbon dioxide or methane).

• harm – To damage or hurt.

• health – Being free from illness; the condition of someone’s body or mind.

• infrastructure – The systems and structures a society builds: roads, power lines, hospitals.

• innovation – A new idea, method, or device that improves things.

• invest – To put money, effort, or resources into something to get benefit later.

• livestock – Farm animals raised by humans, like cows, sheep, goats.

• minimize – To make something as small as possible.

• net-zero – When the amount of greenhouse gas you add is equal to the amount you remove.

• priority – Something that is more important than other things.

• prosperity – Having success, wealth, or well-being.

• resilient – Able to cope or recover quickly from bad conditions or shocks.

• resources – Things you can use: money, materials, land, people.

• scale – To grow something so it can reach many people or places.

• sector – A part or area of economy or society (like transportation or manufacturing).

• technologies – Tools, machines, or methods used to do something.

• vulnerable – Open to harm or risk; not strongly protected.

• welfare – The health, happiness, and well-being of people.

• yield – The amount produced (for example, of crops from farming).

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