Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes $2 billion environmental pledge at COP26 summit

• The funding will come from Bezos Earth Fund, a $10 billion pledge to fight climate change this decade

• Even as the pledges Bezos flew to Glasgow in his private jet

Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday pledged $2 billion in funding at the COP26 summit to help restore nature and transform food systems through the Bezos Earth Fund.

The commitment made at the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, will be put towards landscape restoration and food systems transformation, which will bring his total funding to $3 billion, following a separate $1 billion pledge made in September.

“Together, this $3 billion in pledges will drive a new threefold nature agenda for the Bezos Earth Fund, focused simultaneously on conservation, restoration, and food transformation,” Bezos told delegates at the COP26 climate conference on Tuesday.

Also Read: COP26: India to achieve net-zero emission by 2070, PM Modi pledges

Funding to save the planet

Bezos Earth Fund is a part of the billionaire’s pledge to spend $10 billion fighting climate change this decade.

“We must conserve what we still have, we must restore what we’ve lost, and we must grow what we need to live without degrading the planet for future generations to come.”

Bezos’s pledge arrives at a crucial moment in the fight against global warming as leaders worldwide are gathering to discuss plans to keep the average increase in temperature below 1.5 degrees celsius.

In a speech to world leaders, former Amazon CEO described how his successful journey to the edge of space on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight in July compelled him to do more to protect the environment.

Also Read: COP26: World leaders including US, China & Brazil pledge to end deforestation by 2030

The hypocrisy

“I was told seeing the Earth from space changes the lens through which you view the world, but I was not prepared for just how much that would be true,” he said. “Looking back at the Earth from up there, the atmosphere seems so thin, the world so finite and so fragile.”

However, it has been reported that, like many of the VIPs and dignitaries at COP26, Bezos flew to Glasgow aboard his private jet, despite saying climate change is the planet’s ‘biggest threat.’

Picture Credit: Forbes