Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is preparing to announce a series of major grants from the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund he launched in February to fight climate change, the Atlantic reports.
According to two anonymous sources, the richest man in the world spoke with environmental nonprofits and advisors over the summer and is ready to commit $100 million each to four of the most established environmental organizations in the United States — the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the World Wildlife Fund. The same sources said Bezos also is ready to commit $100 million to the World Resources Institute, a sustainability research organization.
In addition, Bezos has promised $200 million in grants ranging between $10 million and $50 million to four nonprofits specializing in climate and energy research — the Energy Foundation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the ClimateWorks Foundation, and the Rocky Mountain Institute.
According to the Atlantic, the grants suggest Bezos is focusing his climate philanthropy on traditional environmental organizations and conventional approaches, given that most of the grantees subscribe to a pollution-centric view of the climate crisis and favor technocratic solutions to the problem that involve a gradual ramping down of greenhouse gas emissions. However, a spokesperson for the Earth Fund told the Atlantic that the organizations rumored to be in line for grants are not the only ones likely to receive awards in this funding round. “Th[e] list,” said the spokesperson, “does not reflect the complete range of organizations that the Earth Fund has been speaking with and that will be receiving grants from the fund in this initial round — stay tuned.”
