And if the image was generated in a climate-friendly manner, like through AI Horde or Ecosia, is it still problematic?
Yes, because unless the model was trained with properly licensed artwork (and virtually none of them are), it was built upon stolen art. Doesn't matter if it's somehow used ethically after that, the core algorithms were created unethically.
On top of that, GenAI use in its current form directly or indirectly supports billionaires and their goals, either by boosting their usage numbers for investors, boosting usage so that they decide to buy up production capacity for literal years, or just generally normalizing usage to regular people who are ignorant of the issues or (worse) supportive of the billionaire class.