Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has announced a first round of grants from the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund he launched in February.
With a net worth of more than $180 billion, the wealthiest person in the world wrote in an Instagram post on Monday that he was awarding a total of $791 million to sixteen organizations working to address climate change. The identities of and award amounts for some of the grantees had previously been reported by The Atlantic: the Environmental Defense Fund ($100 million), the Natural Resources Defense Council ($100 million), the Nature Conservancy ($100 million), the World Wildlife Fund ($100 million), the World Resources Institute ($100 million), the ClimateWorks Foundation ($50 million), the Energy Foundation ($30 million), the Rocky Mountain Institute ($10 million), and the Union of Concerned Scientists ($15 million). Additional recipients of multiyear grants announced this week by Bezos are the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund ($43 million), Dream Corps Green For All ($10 million), Eden Reforestation Projects ($5 million), the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice ($43 million), NDN Collective ($12 million), the Salk Institute for Biological Studies ($30 million), and the Solutions Project ($43 million).
“I’ve spent the past several months learning from a group of incredibly smart people who’ve made it their life’s work to fight climate change and its impact on communities around the world,” wrote Bezos. “I’m inspired by what they’re doing, and excited to help them scale….This $791 million in donations is just the beginning of my $10 billion commitment to fund scientists, activists, NGOs, and others. We can all protect Earth’s future by taking bold action now.”
The Nature Conservancy — in partnership with Indigenous and tribal communities — will use its grant to protect the Emerald Edge, the largest intact coastal rainforest on Earth, spanning a hundred million acres across Washington state, British Columbia, and southeastern Alaska, as well as to advance efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of smallholder farmers in northwestern India, while the Dream Corps Green For All will use its grant to create a more sustainable future with strong green-economy jobs and wealth-building opportunities for Black and Brown communities.
“With this funding, we’ll be able to double our capacity to create a future green economy that prioritizes low-income communities and people of color across America who have historically borne the brunt of environmental pollution but [were] pushed to the back of the line when it comes to benefiting from solutions,” said Dream Corps Green For All national director Michelle Romero.
Source: PND
