Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk fight the climate problem in Iron Man mode

Climate change seems to be on the agenda for technology billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, but some are wondering if they are focusing their efforts on the right areas.

Broadly speaking, the richest technology billionaires – who rank in the top five richest people on the planet – are all trying to develop new technologies that can reduce the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Musk is largely focused on financing carbon capture technologies, Gates is particularly optimistic about nuclear power, and Bezos has created a dedicated “Bezos Earth fund.” Everyone believes that technology has a major role to play in combating climate change and is doing everything possible to ensure that it exceeds the limits when it comes to climate technology.

“Basically, they think of ‘Iron Man,’ which means we can build technology to innovate from it,” Christian Kroll, founder and CEO of search engine Ecosia, said in a video call to CNBC, adding that should focus more on planting trees.

“No technology will ever get there,” he said of the trees. “And on top of that, you get so many things for free. You get fertile soil, do something against the biodiversity crisis and get to the water cycle, so you have fewer droughts and fewer floods. “

Global carbon dioxide emissions have increased over the last 100 years, leading to global warming and unprecedented climate change.

It is known that trees are among the most efficient carbon sequestration machines on earth. It removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through a chemical reaction known as photosynthesis in which it converts gas into energy that it uses to grow. Empress children, for example, can absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre.

Twelve of the top 20 climate solutions relate to either agriculture or forests, according to the San Francisco-based non-profit Climate Drawdown Project.

Last week, Prince William of Great Britain emphasized the importance of investing in nature to combat climate change and protect our planet.

“We need to invest in nature through reforestation, sustainable agriculture and supporting healthy oceans, because doing so is one of the most effective and efficient ways to address climate change,” he said.

“It removes carbon from the atmosphere, helps build more resilient communities, combats biodiversity loss and protects people’s livelihoods. This is crucial if our children and grandchildren are to live sustainably on our precious planet. ”

Jack Kelly, founder of Open Climate Fix and a former researcher at Alphabet-owned AI DeepMind, told CNBC that a combination of approaches is needed. “I think we need a wide range of interventions, both technological and reforestation,” he said.

However, trees and reforestation are relatively low on the list of technology billionaires, according to Kroll.

Although technology billionaires would not necessarily be able to “solve” climate change by planting more trees, it could have a “massive impact” if they dedicated more of their capital, he said.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, founder Amazon Bezos is worth $ 197 billion, founder Tesla Musk is worth $ 181 billion, and founder Microsoft Gates is worth $ 145 billion.

Representatives for Musk and Gates did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment, while a representative for Bezos declined to comment.

There is no denying that technology billionaires are becoming increasingly interested in climate change.

In January, Tesla CEO Musk pledged to invest $ 100 million in new carbon capture technologies. Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide waste either directly from the air or even before it is emitted from factories and power plants.

His investment in new carbon capture technologies exceeds the $ 1 million he spent on trees in 2019, when he gave YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson a donation to help him reach a 20 million tree planting target. of dollars.

Musk’s position on climate change, however, is complicated. While running a relatively green electric vehicle company, he was also criticized for his love of bitcoin, which is now one of the largest emitters of CO2 in the world.

Meanwhile, Gates believes that nuclear power is the future and his company TerraPower, which he founded in 2008, aims to build a fully functional advanced nuclear reactor.

In his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” Gates doesn’t seem convinced that trees are worth investing in.

“It has an obvious appeal to those of us who love trees, but it opens up a very complicated subject … its effect on climate change seems to be overstated,” he writes.

Gates argues that the most effective reforestation strategy is to stop cutting down so many trees we already have, and says that “you would need somewhere around 50 acres worth of trees planted in tropical areas to absorb emissions. produced by an average American in their lives. “

Microsoft tycoon clarified his position on trees in a podcast interview with New York Times journalist Kara Swisher in February.

“If you finance it for 10,000 years to replant it constantly, then this is a legitimate offset,” Gates said. “If you only plant a generation of trees, you don’t get too much. You know, I’m not saying it’s a mistake or something. But that won’t make a significant drop in this issue.”

Gates, who is now the largest owner of agricultural land in the United States, added: “The idea that there is a place to plant a trillion trees is just wrong.”

Elsewhere, Bezos created the $ 10 billion Bezos Earth Fund in February last year to provide financial support to scientists, non-governmental organizations, activists and the private sector.

To date, the Bezos Earth Fund has provided grants to several reforestation-focused organizations, including Eden Reforestation, The Nature Conservancy, and The Natural Resources Defense Council projects.

However, Amazon has been criticized for increasing pollution with its planes and vans and for using excessive amounts of cardboard to pack its products. Amazon says its packaging is 100% renewable and does not use plastic shells and wire ties.

Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing giant, and Microsoft also operate energy-intensive data centers around the world.

But Kroll believes technology billionaires are still relatively “obsessed” with dreaming of new technologies to take over.

His company, Ecosia, has made tree planting an important part of his identity.

Headquartered in Berlin, Scotland donates 80% of its profits to charities that focus on reforestation. In essence, if a person enters the Ecosia search engine and performs a search, almost all the money the company earns from digital ads will be used to plant trees.

The company has worked with more than 60 tree planting organizations that have planted more than 123 million trees, Kroll said, adding that it is mostly in developing countries in the tropics.

“By planting trees, each search removes about 1 kg of CO2 from the atmosphere,” Kroll said. “I do dozens of searches every day, so thousands of searches every year. That means a few tons of CO2 removed from the atmosphere just by searching.”

Kroll suggested that people should be classified as billionaires only when they remove one billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.

“Everyone else is just billionaires in dollars,” he said. “It’s boring. We don’t need that in a 21st century.”