But privately in the climate and biodiversity sector, the mood around the Bezos Earth Fund has turned to one of growing unease. Researchers, climate policy advisers and NGO staff voiced concerns about the level of influence the organisation holds over critical environmental institutions for halting climate change and biodiversity loss, many of which now count Bezos Earth Fund among their biggest funders. Some did not want to be named due to concerns about the consequences for their own funding.
“We have seen millions of dollars paid to conservation and climate organisations. So many have taken money from the Bezos Earth Fund and I find it really worrying. There is obviously a risk of a conflict of interest,” says Holger Hoffmann-Riem from the Swiss NGO Go for Impact. “The credibility of the system relies on independence.”
One climate policy expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says: “In the few years since it started distributing enormous amounts of money for climate change and conservation, Bezos Earth Fund has established influence over many major initiatives and their board members.
“At this point, Bezos Earth Fund’s enormous presence in the climate and conservation space starts to look less philanthropical, and more like an attempt to take over the corporate governance system for its own interests and agenda.”
Bezos is an obvious asshat - so while him giving away money for climate change is probably good, it’s extremely rational to suspect an ulterior motive.
If the bad guy suddenly tries to start being the good guy, good guys tend to be skeptical. Seems legit.
The article explains the rule-changing power of his donations.
Many in the conservation and climate world say their concerns crystallised this year, when a bitter internal row erupted at the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), one of the world’s most important climate certification organisations. The SBTi, which received an $18m grant from Bezos in 2021, is the organisation responsible for assessing whether some of the world’s leading companies are decarbonising in line with the Paris agreement.
In April, the SBTi board unexpectedly announced plans to allow companies to meet their climate targets with carbon offsets from the unregulated voluntary carbon market for indirect emissions. The move provoked internal fury. Staff and technical advisers said they were not consulted about the announcement and warned it could open the door to greenwashing.
Carbon offsetting is a legitimate practice if the emissions are reduced from a regulated and measured industry. Otherwise, the company can fabricate reduction estimates from what they believe would have been emitted without reduction efforts.
Carbon offsetting is mostly hogwash though. Creating a plantation of trees in place of a viable ecosystem (for the few that actually do it and don’t just pretend) isn’t very good in the long-term.
Planting trees isn’t a measured reduction in a regulated industry. What the climate scientists are condemning is exactly that example.
An example of what they consider valid offset would be funding implementation of alternative energy harnessing devices, like solar or turbines. Measurable clean energy generation provides a calculable reduction in carbon emissions.
That’s no longer required, thanks to the influence of Bezos’s donations. Now they can just plant trees and make up a number.
It does? We’ve been using record number of fossil fuels even with the price and scale of renewables we’ve built to date, they’ve barely put a dent in the total energy. ~85% of energy we used in 2022 was a fossil fuel.
All the more reason why the alternative energy space needs funding. The point is that the energy produced form the projects can be calculated as a carbon reduction number that can be subtracted from the carbon produced by his business. If he wants a greater offset, he has to fund more clean energy generating projects.
Its not like we can actually just replace oil. We just demand more energy when we build “clean” energy, so any gains in alternative energy are usually cancelled out. We have released a record number of CO2 and other harmful gasses this year, and we show no signs of slowing down any time soon. We should have switched to solar in 1980s, by now it is almost too late to change our ways. Not to mention the ecosystem getting devastated by our “clean” energy needs.
I completely agree this should have been done sooner. There are new energy hogs, like AI and mining, as well as increased consumption due to our transition to electric energy alternatives, like EVs. Increasing clean energy production should be an high priority until successful mitigation or extinction.
The real problem is the relative wealth disparity. That is why his fund is so dominant. Paul mccarthy just became a billionaire. just barely and it reminds of when elvis was one of the richest persons and paid the top tax rate. Paul mccarthy should be at or near the top of wealth right now.
That’s a really long way of saying that Bezos is probably funding these projects so if they try to do something that effects his business negatively his company can threaten to pull funding and effectively put a stop to it.
