Amazon on Thursday announced the first companies to receive money from a $2 billion venture capital fund it formed to help combat climate change.
Axios Re:Cap digs into how Amazon hopes the fund will help achieve its goal of being carbon neutral by 2040, and whether the plan is more substance than spin, with Matt Peterson, Amazon's director of new initiatives and corporate development.
Partnering with oil and gas producers is necessary for Amazon and other companies to achieve their climate goals, the tech giant's chief of sustainability, Kara Hurst, said during an Axios virtual event on Thursday.
The big picture: Amazon aims to hit carbon neutrality in 2040, 10 years earlier than the Paris climate accord. The company plans to reach its goal in part by helping companies develop climate-friendly technologies through a $2 billion venture fund. The first recipients were announced on Thursday.
The air quality in Portland has become the worst in the world — with Seattle, Los Angeles and Denver also ranking up there with notoriously polluted places like Delhi and Shanghai.
Why it matters: Big-city residents often consider themselves smugly immune to the physical wreckage of calamities like wildfires, floods and hurricanes. The pernicious smoke now blanketing the splendid cities of our nation's Western spine is a reminder that no one is exempt from climate change.
Parents of at least some means are eyeing private schools more frequently.
Why it matters: Christopher Lubienski, an education policy professor at Indiana University, told Axios that parents' growing interest in private schools, pods and tutors will likely "promote privatization" in the U.S. education system and could "undercut the commitment to public education."
A "sizable proportion of the population could meet its food needs" through farming within a 155-mile radius of its metropolitan area — fulfilling a locavore's dream, per a Tufts University study published this week.
Why it matters: The locavore and farm-to-table movements — as popularized by Michael Pollan, Alice Waters and others — inspire passion among foodies but actually represent just a small segment of U.S. agricultural activity.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) is urging Americans to "vote against candidates that deny climate change" in November, during an Axios virtual event on Thursday.
What he's saying: "I hope you'll make a voting decision this year that you are gonna vote against candidates that deny climate change, or even worse, accept the fact that there is climate change but refuse to do something about it," Inslee said.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee indicated at an Axios virtual event Thursday that he’s not interested in a Cabinet post should Joe Biden win the presidency.
Why it matters: Inslee, who briefly ran for president on a campaign based solely on climate change, has been rumored among environmentalists and experts close to the campaign as a possible Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) described the deadly wildfires sweeping the West Coast as "cataclysmic" for Washington state at an Axios virtual event on Thursday and said that climate change has made the problem worse.
What he's saying: "What we're experiencing in Washington is profound changes particularly in our grassland and our sage brush. It's incredibly dry, very hot, and as a result we have explosive conditions in the state of Washington," he said.
Sudden changes in world politics can bring about permanent changes in oil-and-gas use, per a recent Morgan Stanley report.
Driving the news: Geopolitical unrest in the late '70s and early '80s — the Iranian Revolution and start of the Iran-Iraq war — disrupted a lot of oil supply that, in turn, sent prices skyrocketing. That sudden jolt to the global oil system permanently cut oil consumption per capita that’s stayed with the world ever since, says Martijn Rats, managing director for equity research for Morgan Stanley.
Ford is offering more info about the design and strategy around its long-awaited entry into the electric truck market, the battery-powered F-150 pickup arriving in mid-2022.
Why it matters: There's new capital coming into the increasingly competitive electric pickup race, with Tesla, Rivian and others bringing new models to market over the next couple of years.
Amazon just named the first recipients of money from the $2 billion venture fund it rolled out in June to help companies develop climate friendly technologies.
Driving the news: Amazon, which has pledged to have "net zero" emissions by 2040, said on Thursday morning initial recipients are...
"Catastrophic" flooding from Tropical Depression Sally spilled inland across eastern Alabama and southwestern Georgia on Wednesday, bringing peak winds down to 45 mph winds, per the National Hurricane Center.
Why it matters: The mayor of Orange Beach, Ala., said one person died in the storm and hundreds of others have been rescued, per AP. Sally made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Gulf Shores, before later being downgraded to a tropical storm and later a depression. But the NHC warned late Wednesday it's "still causing torrential rains over eastern Alabama and western Georgia."
