Bill Gates, a billionaire, reportedly searched for ‘hundreds upon acres’ of farmland in Turkey while on vacation aboard a superyacht that emits 19 tons of carbon dioxide per day just before heading to the climate conference in Scotland.
Forbes estimates Gates’ worth at $138 billion. He was visiting Turkey last week for his 66th Birthday.
According to a source, ‘He wants a large sustainable farm in Turkey’.
Gates, 66, is already the largest farmland owner in the US with about 242,000 acres in 18 states.
Bill Gates was reportedly on a trip to Turkey last week to shop for “hundreds upon acres of farmland”
Gates, the fourth-richest man on the planet, was seen cruising the coast aboard the LANA, a superyacht with a 107-meter length.
The tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist has come under fire for his extravagant lifestyle which contributes significantly to global carbon emissions at twice the rate of the average person.
Gates was reported to have flown Bezos, along with 50 other guests, from the LANA yacht in the Turkish city Larna, via helicopter to Fethiye for his birthday party last Thursday.
He had been vacationing off the coast of Turkey aboard the yacht for more than a week, according to the Post and Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
According to Imperial Yachts Monaco, the LANA is 107 meters long and has seven VIP’staterooms’, a cinema room, and a large pool on a sundeck. The vessel can be rented for $2,110,000.500 per week.
Last week, Gates and about 50 guests, including Jeff Bezos, were flown via helicopter from the LANA to the Sea Me Beach in Turkey’s southwestern province of Muğla’s Fethiye district
According to local media, Gates celebrated his birthday at this restaurant for approximately four hours.
Gates is currently attending the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, and it does not appear that he has flown back to Turkey.
Representatives for Gates and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.
On Tuesday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it was pledging $315 million ‘to help hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers adapt to a surge of climate threats now imperiling the global fight against hunger and poverty.’
Its total commitment to CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) now amounts to about $1 billion.
CGIAR, which has been delivering high impact solutions to farmers in low income countries for 50+ years, now has over half a trillion dollars in 2021 to create a wide range of climate-smart innovation, including stress-tolerant crop varieties, forecasting services and new strategies for restoring land to improve productivity.
Speaking with UK lawmaker Jeremy Hunt, Gates said he doubts the world will be able to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
‘It’s all a matter of degrees, so to speak. According to him, hitting 2.5 is better that hitting 3. Hitting 2 is better than hitting 2.5. video Hunt posted this on Twitter.
‘1.5 … will be very difficult, I doubt that we’ll be able to achieve that.’
He stated that there was no comparable feat of mankind that could be compared to what we must do to combat climate change. But he also acknowledged that the world is a whole.We are much richer and more knowledgeable today because we have the digital technology that allows us to do these things.
‘What happened with solar panels, where they were very expensive and now they’re cheap, or lithium ion batteries, we need to do that for about six other technologies.’
Gate’s Turkey purchases would enhance an already impressive land portfolio.
The tech billionaire has quietly purchased 242,000 acres of farmland across 18 states, and 268,984 acres of multi-use land across 19 states. This makes him the largest agricultural landowner in the US.
Gates purchased nearly $28 million worth of land in Florida’s Suwannee County in 2014.
A 2018 purchase of farmland in Horse Heaven Hill by a ‘Louisiana investor’ was $171 million. This was one of the most expensive real estate deals in recent memory
His largest holdings in the US include 69.071 acres in Louisiana, 47.927 acres Arkansas, 25,750 Arizona acres, 25,750 acres in Arizona and 20,588 acres Nebraska.
Gates doesn’t rank among the Top 100 private landowners in America – when we consider land owners of all types and not just agricultural.
John Malone, chairman and CEO of Liberty Media, is the US businessman with the largest landholdings. He owns 2.2 million acres.
Both Gates and Bezos were branded eco-hypocrites after lecturing the world about the need to reduce carbon footprints and while vacationing together off the coast of Turkey on Gates’s superyacht ‘Lana.
Superyachts release 7,020 tons of CO2 per year, or 19 tonnes per day.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been criticized, as Gates and Gates live extravagant lives while championing climate change mitigation.
‘A superyacht with a permanent crew, helicopter pad, submarines and pools emits about 7,020 tons of CO2 a year … making it by far the worst asset to own from an environmental standpoint,’ Richard Wilk and Beatriz Barros of the University of Indiana’s Department of Anthropology told the New York Post.
Wilk said the average person’s CO2 emissions in a year are between 5 and 10 tons.
Bezos, the world’s richest man, flew to Glasgow on Monday aboard his private Gulf Stream Gulf Stream jet for $65 million.
According to reports, Gates reached his boat via helicopter from Amazon boss Alexis de la Torre – who lectures the world about climate change regularly – according to reports.
It is not known when Mr Gates arrived in Cop26 or how he got there.
However, his superyacht could be seen anchored off Mugla in southwestern Turkey on Tuesday.