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 following US president notably 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 widespread — let’s shield it, collectively,” Bezos wrote on Instagram when he introduced the fund. He stepped down from his submit as Amazon CEO in 2021 to give attention to 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 vitality — 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 rules, 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 past couple of years of Trump’s first time period, a wave of massive tech firms made commitments to cut back greenhouse fuel emissions — ostensibly according to what’s wanted to succeed in Paris local weather settlement targets.
One of many early firms to take action was Amazon, which set a objective in 2019 of reaching internet zero greenhouse fuel emissions by 2040. Quick-forward to 2023, and the corporate nonetheless produced 34 p.c extra carbon air pollution than it did when it made its first local weather pledge — though its emissions have began to return again down barely, in line with Amazon’s newest sustainability report.
Since its inception, the Bezos Earth Fund has given $2 billion in grants to a big 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 through the years about Amazon’s personal air pollution and over how efficient and equitable a number of the applications it helps have been. Over time, although, the fund has began to funnel extra money into grassroots teams working to make sure that there are extra various voices being heard in the case of discovering options. (The Bezos Earth Fund didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark from The Verge.)
Below one other Trump presidency, regionally led local weather motion and philanthropy turn into much more essential once more. Upon stepping again into workplace, Trump is predicted to introduce a landslide of recent insurance policies that might gradual the transition to cleaner vitality 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 vitality effectivity initiatives and the home manufacturing of electrical autos and clear vitality applied sciences. The Inflation Discount Act alone is projected to slash greenhouse fuel emissions by roughly 40 p.c from 2005 ranges by the top of the last decade — bringing the US near reaching targets President Joe Biden set upon recommitting the US to the Paris local weather settlement.
One other Trump presidency, however, would probably improve US greenhouse fuel emissions by 4 billion metric tons in comparison with Biden’s plans, in line 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 actually 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 all 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 couple of. The president-elect has responded nicely to flattery previously, in spite of everything — providing Musk his personal “effectivity” process pressure to run. And Trump continuously 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 maintain local weather targets alive or fall in line behind a president who instructed Musk in August that “the largest menace is nuclear warming … To me, the largest downside is just not local weather change.”
