Jeff Bezos would possibly simply be the largest local weather philanthropist on the market, which is what makes his swift embrace of Donald Trump as the subsequent US president significantly cringeworthy.
“Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in main and uniting the America all of us love,” Bezos posted on X, hours after Trump declared victory.
The Amazon founder and chair launched his Bezos Earth Fund in 2020, committing $10 billion to funding motion on local weather change. The fund’s web site describes it as “the most important philanthropic dedication ever to combat local weather change and shield nature.”
“Earth is the one factor all of us have in frequent — let’s shield it, collectively,” Bezos wrote on Instagram when he introduced the fund. He stepped down from his publish as Amazon CEO in 2021 to concentrate on the fund, The Washington Publish, and his different “passions.” (Bezos reportedly killed The Washington Publish’s deliberate endorsement of Kamala Harris.)
President-elect Trump, in the meantime, says rising sea ranges — which make storms and flooding extra harmful because of local weather change — merely imply “you’ll have extra ocean entrance property.” On the marketing campaign path, he disparaged options like renewable power — pushing misinformation like the parable that offshore wind farms are killing whales alongside US shorelines. He constantly downplays the dangers posed by local weather change, even because the US reels from disasters like Hurricane Helene that had been supercharged by greenhouse fuel emissions.
Throughout his first time period in workplace, Trump rolled again greater than 100 environmental laws, positioned fossil gas lobbyists in cost of the Environmental Safety Company, and briefly pulled the US out of the worldwide Paris settlement to cease local weather change.
Whereas the US dropped the ball on local weather motion on the federal degree, native leaders and even the personal sector tried to fill within the gaps. Over the last couple of years of Trump’s first time period, a wave of huge tech corporations made commitments to cut back greenhouse fuel emissions — ostensibly consistent with what’s wanted to succeed in Paris local weather settlement objectives.
One of many early corporations to take action was Amazon, which set a purpose in 2019 of reaching web zero greenhouse fuel emissions by 2040. Quick-forward to 2023, and the corporate nonetheless produced 34 % extra carbon air pollution than it did when it made its first local weather pledge — though its emissions have began to come back again down barely, in keeping with Amazon’s newest sustainability report.
Since its inception, the Bezos Earth Fund has given $2 billion in grants to a wide selection of tasks — from defending forests to monitoring planet-heating methane air pollution by satellite tv for pc. To make certain, the fund has confronted some criticism over time about Amazon’s personal air pollution and over how efficient and equitable a few of the applications it helps have been. Over time, although, the fund has began to funnel more cash into grassroots teams working to make sure that there are extra various voices being heard on the subject of discovering options. (The Bezos Earth Fund didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark from The Verge.)
Underneath one other Trump presidency, regionally led local weather motion and philanthropy develop into much more essential once more. Upon stepping again into workplace, Trump is anticipated to introduce a landslide of latest insurance policies that may gradual the transition to cleaner power wanted to maintain local weather disasters from rising a lot worse.
Notably, he mentioned he’d rescind unspent funds from the 2022 Inflation Discount Act that put aside $369 billion for power effectivity initiatives and the home manufacturing of electrical autos and clear power applied sciences. The Inflation Discount Act alone is projected to slash greenhouse fuel emissions by roughly 40 % from 2005 ranges by the top of the last decade — bringing the US near reaching objectives President Joe Biden set upon recommitting the US to the Paris local weather settlement.
One other Trump presidency, then again, would doubtless enhance US greenhouse fuel emissions by 4 billion metric tons in comparison with Biden’s plans, in keeping with a Carbon Transient evaluation revealed earlier than Harris grew to become the Democratic candidate. Trump has additionally mentioned that he’d take the US out of the Paris accord once more.
Bezos definitely isn’t the one tech mogul to kiss the ring since Trump’s win on the polls this week. Elon Musk has been one in every of Trump’s most influential hype males. Apple’s Tim Cook dinner, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella have all prolonged their congratulations, to call a number of. The president-elect has responded nicely to flattery previously, in any case — providing Musk his personal “effectivity” activity pressure to run. And Trump often threatens his critics with retribution.
All of the bromance might actually simply be a strategic play on the a part of Bezos and different billionaires to guard their backside strains. However that listing represents some huge cash and energy that might both assist preserve local weather objectives alive or fall in line behind a president who instructed Musk in August that “the largest risk is nuclear warming … To me, the largest downside is just not local weather change.”
