In a 2021 interview, Bill Gates named climate change and bioterrorism as possible next global catastrophes after COVID-19. He was describing concerns, not issuing a dated forecast or ranking risks by measured probability. His public framing has since evolved: in 2026, he highlighted the possibility of AI-assisted bioterrorism and the potential for AI to disrupt jobs, while continuing to describe climate change as serious but not humanity-ending.
What Gates said about the next major threats in 2021
In a February 4, 2021 interview with Veritasium host Derek Muller, Gates was asked what disaster might come next that the world was unprepared for. A February 11 report by Interesting Engineering says he identified climate change and bioterrorism.
Climate change
Gates said: “One is climate change. Every year that would be a death toll even greater than (what) we’ve had in this pandemic.” The report does not provide a timeframe or method for that comparison, so it should be read as Gates’s warning—not as a directly comparable estimate of climate and pandemic deaths.
Bioterrorism
Gates described the possibility that someone seeking to cause harm could engineer a virus, arguing that this could make the risk greater than naturally occurring epidemics. He also said, “There will be more pandemics,” while expressing hope that improved preparedness could keep future losses far below those from COVID-19.
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The report connects these concerns to Gates’s 2015 TED talk, The next outbreak? We’re not ready, which warned that respiratory viruses can spread while infected people continue moving through public places. A warning about preparedness does not establish the likelihood or timing of any particular outbreak. The 2021 article is a secondary report, and its interview quotations should be understood as remarks reported there.
How Gates’s concerns have changed by 2026
In his January 9, 2026 essay, The Year Ahead 2026, Gates places AI at the center of two challenges he expects to matter over the next decade: malicious use and job-market disruption. These are his assessments, not quantified forecasts.
AI-enabled bioterrorism
Gates wrote: “Today, an even greater risk than a naturally caused pandemic is that a non-government group will use open source AI tools to design a bioterrorism weapon.” This extends his earlier concern about deliberate biological harm by pointing to AI tools and non-government actors. The essay does not give a probability for this scenario.
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Job-market disruption
Gates separately says AI’s effects on jobs are already beginning and could grow over the next five years. This is a social and economic challenge, distinct from the possibility of catastrophic biological harm; the essay’s discussion does not establish the scale or distribution of future job losses.
How Gates now describes climate change
In an October 28, 2025 essay, Three tough truths about climate, Gates calls climate change consequential, particularly for people in poorer countries, but rejects the idea that it will bring about humanity’s demise. He writes: “Although climate change will have serious consequences—particularly for people in the poorest countries—it will not lead to humanity’s demise.” That is Gates’s position, not a substitute for a scientific consensus statement.
His proposed response combines emissions-reducing innovation with adaptation and investment in health and development. He argues that climate policy should consider human welfare and poverty alongside emissions. In the same essay, he says projected emissions over a decade have fallen by more than 40 percent. He presents that as a change in projections, not a measured drop in actual emissions; the comparison should not be described as emissions already having fallen by that amount.
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What kind of preparation each concern implies
| Concern | Mechanism and horizon in Gates’s comments | Preparation implied by his framing |
|---|---|---|
| Climate change | Gradual impacts, with serious consequences especially for poorer countries; no specific deadline in the 2021 remarks. | Reduce emissions while investing in adaptation, health, development, and resilience, as described in Gates’s 2025 essay. |
| Bioterrorism | Deliberate biological harm; in 2026, Gates specifically raises non-government actors using open-source AI tools. He does not quantify the probability. | Preparedness for future pandemics and deliberate biological threats; his comments do not specify a complete policy or operational program. |
| AI-related job disruption | Economic and labor-market change that Gates says is beginning and could grow over the next five years. | Recognize and address labor-market effects; the essay does not set out a detailed response plan. |
The table summarizes Gates’s framing, not an independently assessed ranking of likelihood or severity. The 2021 climate-death comparison and pandemic toll are not on a common, defined measurement basis.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why Gates connects climate, health, and poverty
The Gates Foundation’s 2025 announcement lists preventing maternal and child deaths, protecting the next generation from deadly infectious diseases, and reducing poverty as its primary goals for the following two decades. That institutional focus helps explain why Gates often discusses climate risks in terms of health, poverty, and resilience. It does not validate the likelihood of any specific threat.
In The Year Ahead 2026, Gates cites 4.6 million under-five deaths in 2024 and 4.8 million in 2025, attributing the increase to reduced support from rich countries. Those figures and that attribution are his account in the essay, not an independent risk estimate for the threats discussed here.
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How to interpret the headline
“Predicts” overstates what the remarks establish if it is taken to mean that Gates forecast a specific event, date, or probability. The 2021 report records concerns about climate change and bioterrorism; his later essays add AI-enabled biological threats and job disruption while retaining a measured climate framing. The useful takeaway is that Gates is calling for preparation across several different kinds of risk—not claiming that one is certain to become the next catastrophe.
For more detail on his pandemic-preparedness views, Gates refers readers to his book How to Avoid the Next Pandemic. The book is further reading, not evidence that a future pandemic or bioterrorist attack is certain.
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