San Francisco, Dec 7 : Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has pledged $443 million in grant as part of his Earth Fund to fight climate change, protect and restore nature, and advance environmental justice and economic opportunity.
Bezos launched Earth Fund in 2020 to execute his $10 billion — about 5 per cent of his current net worth — commitment to fight climate change.
The Fund awarded 44 grants totaling $443 million to organisations focused on climate justice, nature conservation and restoration, and tracking critical climate goals, it said in a statement.
It sets aside $130 million for 19 different organisations doing “doing critical climate justice work”, and follows another $150 million pledged to climate justice groups in September.
The grants include $130 million to advance the Justice40 initiative in the US, $261 million to further the 30×30 initiative to protect 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030, with a focus on the Congo Basin and Tropical Andes, and $51 million to support land restoration in the US and Africa, the statement added.The goal of the Bezos Earth Fund was to support change agents who are taking on the challenges presented by this decisive decade,” stated Andrew Steer, President & CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund.”Through these grants we are advancing climate justice as well as the protection of nature.These areas require stronger action.”
The Fund pledged more than $3B this year for similar initiatives, according to the Verge.
Bezos grantees include many groups that gather data for policymaking, support Native communities, and plan to create training programmes to help with the Justice40 initiative.
Meanwhile, Amazon was implicated in a recent report as playing an “outsized” role in port congestion and associated shipping pollution along the west coast of the US.And despite Amazon’s commitments to address climate change, the company’s carbon footprint grew by nearly 20 per cent in 2020, the report said.
Bezos’ Earth Fund has also faced criticism, particularly from some grassroots environmental groups.Critics pointed out that Bezos funded mainly big-name environmental groups with historically-white leadership and large budgets, rather than supporting Indigenous and peoples of colour-led community organizations.
Other criticisms focused on how Amazon, the e-commerce giant Bezos founded, continues to pollute neighbourhoods and emit increasing levels of greenhouse gases.
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