In a candid interview with Bloomberg TV at the annual United Nations summit in Dubai, Bill Gates cautioned that achieving the Paris Agreement’s ambitious 2-degree Celsius warming target might be slipping out of reach.

He pointed out that “climate progress is moving ahead even though we won’t meet our highest aspirations.”

Bill Gates emphasized the stakes, citing a 2018 study published in Lancet Planetary Health. He highlighted the alarming projections: a 3-degree Celsius rise could expose up to 50 million people to fatal temperatures and result in drastic changes globally.

New York City could see a significant increase in flooding, facing three once-in-a-century events annually. African cities might encounter dangerous heat conditions for 52 times longer than present. Additionally, wildfires could devastate twice the current land area, and the Amazon rainforest might transform into grassland.

Gates’s observations underscore the urgency and severity of the situation, pointing to the real and alarming consequences of failing to meet ambitious climate goals.