I think it's pretty clearly hypocritical, but also if his actions are (far) more than offsetting his own emissions and impact, it's still a net positive.
Of course, he could choose to not live a super-high consumption lifestyle in addition to his climate philanthopy, but if I had to take one or the other, I'd rather him continue throwing money at climate work than take fewer private jet rides.
But... he could easily do both. This is why I have such a hard time taking anything said about climate change seriously from the likes of Gore, Gates, and celebrities. They don’t practice what they preach.
And it’s not like we’re talking about some huge sacrifices here. Go from a 50K sqft house to a “modest” 10k sqft one. Don’t sail around on personal yachts. Fly commercial. Use Zoom. Simple stuff that would give them a lot more credibility. As it is, it’s a whole lot of “do as I say, not as I do.”
I think it matters how it's done. If someone has super high consumption but also invests in clean energy to save the climate that's cool by be. If someone has super high consumption but also invests money into lobbying to deny the lower classes access to consumption as a means of saving the climate I would resent that person.
My issue is, he wants to fight climate change… then tries to spend $200bn in less than 20 years. This afflux of money creates a spike of consumerism, then a sudden dip after that. Consultants in foundations will scramble to spend that money for sure, and they themselves will buy private jets for that.
The way to fight climate change is to keep people at a low level of consumption, and spend his own money very slowly, very scarcely. And keep people with small cars, no Cadillac for any consultant.
Of course, he could choose to not live a super-high consumption lifestyle in addition to his climate philanthopy, but if I had to take one or the other, I'd rather him continue throwing money at climate work than take fewer private jet rides.