Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during an Action on Forests and Land Use event on day three of COP26 on Tuesday in Glasgow, Scotland. Photo: Steve Reigate - Pool/Getty Images
Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, made a climate philanthropy pledge to spend $2 billion on restoring natural habitats and transforming food systems in a speech at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
Why it matters: This is in addition to the $1 billion for conservation and biodiversity the Bezos Earth Fund committed to in September.
- Billionaires like the Amazon founder have been criticized for spending money on suborbital missions into space, rather than solving problems on Earth, such as world poverty.
Yes, but: Bezos' fund has quickly become a very large presence in climate giving, and he's planning to allocate $10 billion by 2030, Axios' Ben Geman notes.
Of note: The Bezos Earth Fund, along with the European Union and 10 countries, signed on to the Congo Basin Pledge at COP26 to mobilize $1.5 billion to protect forests, peatlands and other critical carbon stores.
What he's saying: In his speech, Bezos emphasized his earlier pledge for Amazon to reach carbon neutrality in 2040 and noted that the company "aims to power all its operations by renewable energies by 2025."
- Bezos also spoke of how his flying to suborbital space in July reinforced his commitment to tackling climate change.
- "I was told that seeing the Earth from space changes the lens from which you view the world but I was not prepared for just how much that would be true," he said.