CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk reacts following the company's initial public offering at the NASDAQ market in New York. (Photo: Reuters)

Capturing planet-warming emissions is becoming a critical part of many plans to keep climate change in check, but very little progress has been made on the technology to date, with efforts focused on cutting emissions rather than taking carbon out of the air.

The International Energy Agency said late last year that a sharp rise in the deployment of carbon capture technology was needed if countries are to meet net-zero emissions targets.

Musk, who co-founded and sold Internet payments company PayPal, now leads some of the most futuristic companies in the world. Besides Tesla, he heads rocket company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup that is developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.