SHIFTING DISCOURSES OF CLIMATE ACTION: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF BILL GATES' PIVOT FROM 'CLIMATE DISASTER' TO 'HUMAN WELFARE'
Keywords:
critical discourse analysis, climate change discourse, media discourse, power relations, ideological shift, elite communication.Abstract
This study employs Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the discursive shift in Bill Gates’ climate
change communication, tracing his transition from the 2021 book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster to
a 2025 strategic pivot emphasizing “human welfare” over urgent climate action. This research addresses
a critical gap in understanding how elite actors reframe environmental priorities in public discourse,
potentially shaping perception and policy. Drawing on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework and
van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach, the analysis investigates how lexical choices, modality, agency
attribution, and argumentative structures construct and legitimize a retreat from climate urgency
rhetoric. The study focuses on news reports from CNBC (October 2025) documenting Gates’ position
change, selected as representative of mainstream media framing of elite climate narratives. Findings
reveal systematic use of hedging language, economic rationality discourse, and redistribution of blame,
which collectively recast climate action as economically burdensome rather than existentially
imperative. These discursive strategies illustrate how symbolic power operates to reshape public
understanding of climate priorities, potentially influencing policy directions and collective action. By
situating Gates’ discourse within broader socio-political contexts, including corporate interests and
ideological resistance to regulation, this study contributes to critical scholarship on elite influence in
climate communication and underscores the need for careful scrutiny of public narratives that may
undermine urgent environmental action.
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