America’s Billionaires Weigh In On Climate Change
Written by Erin Bell - Communitopia Vice President
Here’s a quick and dirty look into what some of the most well-known billionaires are doing to fight climate change.
Jeff Bezos The Amazon CEO (and richest man in the world) stated in recent months that he plans to donate $10 billion towards addressing climate change. This includes donations and grants to a number of climate action organizations, including his own Bezos Earth Fund. Amazon also co-founded The Climate Pledge, where participating corporations promise to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, a decade earlier than goals set in the Paris Agreement. Currently, there are over 100 corporations who have signed on and begun taking action to cut their emissions. Amazon’s carbon footprint however continues to grow alongside their revenues, although their “carbon intensity” has decreased slightly. More investments in green technology and renewable energy are to come.
Bill Gates A longtime philanthropist, Gates has made climate change a focal issue in recent years. In 2015, he gave $2 billion to organizations addressing climate change and announced that he will give an additional $2 billion over the next five years. He also launched the Breakthrough Energy Coalition which works alongside other corporations to create zero-carbon technologies. In addition to all of this, Microsoft has set forth admirable climate targets including 100% renewables by 2030, becoming carbon negative by 2030, and a number of other targets related to emissions reduction. Gates also authored a book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.
Elon Musk Musk is the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, an electric vehicle maker. He recently introduced the XPrize Carbon Removal competition, a four-year, $100 million competition calling on fellow engineers, visionaries and innovators to create carbon removal/sequestration technologies. He also advocates for a carbon tax. Tesla’s current precise carbon emissions remain undisclosed.
Mark Zuckerberg Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media platform will take measures to prevent climate change misinformation from being spread on Facebook. The company also is a large corporate user of renewable energy and recently reported that they reached net-zero carbon emissions related to direct operations. They have set goals to reach that same target for all of their indirect operations and contractors, too. Zuckerberg and his wife have also dedicated 99% of Facebook shares to their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which has made donations to support work in sustainability.
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