The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focuses closely on climate challenges, and 2024 will be a pivotal year for climate change. Former Microsoft (MSFT) President and CEO Bill Gates joins Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to discuss climate challenges and the impact that the 2024 election could have on climate change in the United States.

2024 election and climate impact (00:00:00)

"I'm a huge believer in more generosity to poor countries, to help them with their climate challenges," Gates said. "The U.S. government is the biggest player, and getting the group in that maintains generosity, spends that money well for health challenges and climate challenges. I hope we achieve that."

Collaboration with current administration (00:01:13)

"In both health and climate, they've been very engaged. I'm one voter, you might guess how I'm going to vote, but we've been able to work with every administration," Gates explained. "It's human charity, it's caring, it's creating a stable world. So hopefully we can make the case no matter who's elected."

Inflation Reduction Act (00:01:46)

"The IRA has helped these early stage companies that my group called Breakthrough Energy has funded over a hundred of those companies," Gates said. "And I'd say about 30 of them are able to go build pilot plants aggressively, because with the tax credit, they get bootstrap."

It's all part of Yahoo Finance's exclusive coverage from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where our team will speak to top decision-makers as well as preeminent leaders in business, finance, and politics about the world’s most pressing issues and priorities for the coming year.

Editor's note: This article was written by Zach Faulds.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: I want to point to something you wrote about in your "Gates Notes," looking ahead to 2024 when you said, this election will be pivotal for the presidential election-- in the US, that is-- will be pivotal for climate and health. Can you dig into that a little bit for us?

BILL GATES: Well, I'm a huge believer in more generosity to poor countries to help them with their climate challenges, so-called climate adaptation, and to drive health. Our biggest R&D budget for health in the world is the US government R&D budget.

The US government in HIV under President Bush created an HIV program called PEPFAR that saved tens of millions of lives. And so the US government is the biggest player. And getting a group in that maintains generosity, spends that money well for health challenges and climate challenges, I hope we achieve that.

BRIAN SOZZI: Can-- go ahead.

JULIE HYMAN: Do you want to put a fine point on it and tell us which one you think is going to do that?

BILL GATES: Well, we'll have administrations that are more or less engaged in those issues. You know, I'm a voter--

JULIE HYMAN: You think the current administration is engaged in those issues?

BILL GATES: Very. Yes. I mean, in both health and climate, they've been very engaged. I'm one voter. You might guess how I'm going to vote. But we've been able to work with every administration and try to get-- it's human charity. It's caring. It's creating a stable world. So hopefully, we can make the case no matter who's elected.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah. How impactful has the Inflation Reduction Act been to the green movement and the work you do with the foundation?

BILL GATES: The IRA has helped these early stage companies that my group called Breakthrough Energy is funded over hundreds of those companies. And I'd say about 30 of them are able to go build pilot plants aggressively because with the tax credit, they get bootstrapped. So even though at first the technology is expensive, every one of these companies, we only put money in is if we know it can get so that the price eventually is the same as the current way of, say, making steel or cement or providing transportation.

JULIE HYMAN: And one last question because I know you have to run since you talked about Breakthrough. I was struck in reading your different recent commentary how optimistic you are. And particularly on climate and energy, it can feel daunting. So where do where does that optimism come from? Because it feels like there's not a lot of urgency necessarily around these issues.

BILL GATES: Well, I do worry that things like global health are not as much on the agenda as they should be. Everything that's bad eventually you measure through human health. Climate is bad if you have more malaria or more malnutrition. And so just saying, OK, what are the breakthroughs, whether it's labeled climate or not to improve the human condition, we should continue to do those.

Because of human innovation, we've come a long ways even since the year 2000. And it's not that visible to people, and yet emissions per person have gone down. Total emissions are about to peak. Will we hit the deadlines? That's what's at risk. Because of innovation, we'll eventually get emissions down. But you know, I do worry that we're going to miss a lot of the milestones that we've set for ourselves.