Bill Gates photographed in New York City on June 8, 2022. During a recent interview with the BBC, the billionaire said rich countries needed “to get their emissions down to zero as fast as they can.”
Michael Loccisano | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Bill Gates does not agree that using a private jet and campaigning on the issue of climate change represents a contradiction open to allegations of hypocrisy.
During a wide-ranging interview with the BBC aired at the end of last week, Gates was asked for his view on the charge that a climate change campaigner using a private jet to travel around the world was a hypocrite.
“Well, I buy the gold standard of, funding Climeworks, to do direct air capture that far exceeds my family’s carbon footprint,” the Microsoft co-founder, who was being interviewed in Kenya, replied.
“And I spend billions of dollars on … climate innovation. So, you know, should I stay at home and not come to Kenya and learn about farming and malaria?”
The billionaire added that he was “comfortable with the idea that, not only am I not part of the problem by paying for the offsets, but also through the billions that my Breakthrough Energy Group is spending, that I’m part of the solution.”
The environmental footprint of aviation is significant, with the World Wildlife Fund describing it as “one of the fastest-growing sources of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change.”
The WWF also says air travel is “currently the most carbon intensive activity an individual can make.”
Within aviation, the use of private jets by the wealthy is a contentious issue that creates a significant amount of debate and discussion.
Climeworks, which has offices in Switzerland and Germany, has clients such as Stripe and Microsoft and the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund has invested in the company. It says it “uses a technology called ‘direct air capture’ to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air.”
The firm adds that combining the CO2 that’s been…
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