Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Akshatrati, a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg Green
Speaker 1: and host of the podcast Zero. It's a show about
Speaker 1: the tactics and technologies that take us to a world
Speaker 1: of zero emissions. Every week I talk with influential people
Speaker 1: like Bill Gates, Justin Trudeau, and Kim Stanley Robinson, and
Speaker 1: also people you may not know but who have world
Speaker 1: changing ideas like Briani Worthington on the UK's pioneering climate law,
Speaker 1: Gail Whiteman on bringing climate to Davos, and George Monbio
Speaker 1: on fixing the food system. Today, I'm sharing with you
Speaker 1: a conversation I think you might like. It's an interview
Speaker 1: with Andrew Steer, who heads the ten billion dollar Bezos
Speaker 1: Earth Fund. It's a huge amount of money, but it
Speaker 1: has to be spent wisely to make a real difference.
Speaker 1: Andrew has worked for decades on climate solutions, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to know what role philanthropy plays in the climate
Speaker 1: flight and.
Speaker 2: Where it fails.
Speaker 1: If you like what you hear, subscribe to Zero wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Thursday. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week my money, your money,
Speaker 1: and Jeff's money. In February twenty twenty, Jeff Bezos, then
Speaker 1: the richest person on the planet, posted a picture to
Speaker 1: his four million Instagram followers. It showed the Earth from space,
Speaker 1: the North American continent peeking out from behind the clouds,
Speaker 1: and accompanying the post was a big announcement he was
Speaker 1: committing ten billion dollars to launch the Bezos Earth Fund.
Speaker 1: It is the largest commitment to climate philanthropy ever made,
Speaker 1: and the fund is due to give out all the
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars by twenty thirty. That money, as Bezos outlined,
Speaker 1: will fund and I quote scientists, activists, and geos, any
Speaker 1: effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and
Speaker 1: protect the natural world. Already, the Fund has given out
Speaker 1: about one point six billion dollars to more than one
Speaker 1: hundred projects around the world, from the Congo Basin to
Speaker 1: the mainland US. About a third of that money has
Speaker 1: gone to nature and conservation spending, but the fund has
Speaker 1: also given out grants to projects involving food security, decarbonization
Speaker 1: of industry, and climate tech. Bezas has made appearances at
Speaker 1: high profile events like COP twenty six and the New
Speaker 1: York Climate Week to announce how the money will be spent.
Speaker 3: I'm pleased to announce a two billion dollar pledge allocated
Speaker 3: directly to restoring nature and transforming food systems. This is
Speaker 3: part of the Bezos Earth Funds ten billion dollar commitment
Speaker 3: to fight climate change, enhance nature, in advance environmental justice
Speaker 3: and economic opportunity.
Speaker 1: By most measures, ten billion dollars is a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but it is also a small fraction of the three
Speaker 1: point five trillion dollars that is needed annually to hit
Speaker 1: net zero by twenty fifty. To make an impact, it
Speaker 1: needs to be spent strategically and attract a lot more
Speaker 1: money from governments and corporations. My guest today is Andrew Steer,
Speaker 1: the CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. With Bezos, he
Speaker 1: decides where that ten billion dollars is allocated and how
Speaker 1: to measure its impact. Before taking on this role, Andrew
Speaker 1: was the head of the World Resources Institute. He also
Speaker 1: worked as a Special Climate Envoy for the World Bank
Speaker 1: and as Director General of the UK's Department for International Development.
Speaker 1: I sat down with Andrew at the World Economic Forum
Speaker 1: in Davos to ask how the Bezos Earth Fund spends
Speaker 1: its billions, what counts a success and whether climate philanthropy
Speaker 1: is the new super yacht.
Speaker 2: Andrew, Welcome to the show, Thank you, Akshat, looking forward
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Now. What is the role of climate philanthropy over the
Speaker 1: next few decades and how does it change as we
Speaker 1: get closer to hitting our climate targets by twenty fifty.
Speaker 2: Well, philanthropy can act quickly, it can get ahead of
Speaker 2: the game. Governments take quite a while to get their
Speaker 2: money baid to spend. We're able to do it quicker.
Speaker 2: We're also able to take risks. So what we really
Speaker 2: need to do is to look at the challenges of
Speaker 2: this decade. They're about forty or fifty transitions we have
Speaker 2: to go through. We need to diagnose those, and we
Speaker 2: need to understand how do we get them to those
Speaker 2: positive tipping points at which stage change becomes irresistible and unstoppable.
Speaker 1: At COP twenty seven, you said, I don't think we
Speaker 1: should buy into the idea that climate philanthropy is somehow
Speaker 1: an alternative to government, because governments have an obligation and
Speaker 1: they are not living up to it to the extent
Speaker 1: they should. How do you see the role of philanthropy
Speaker 1: and government being different. And when do you think philanthropy
Speaker 1: and government should work together.
Speaker 2: I think philanthropy should often work together with government, although
Speaker 2: sometimes philanthropy will be supporting political activism against governments to
Speaker 2: change government policy. So philanthropy should not compensate for funding
Speaker 2: that governments choose not to make. On the contrary, philanthropy
Speaker 2: should try to urge governments to play the role that
Speaker 2: they should play. Governments have an obligation to address public goods,
Speaker 2: and protecting the atmosphere is a pretty important public obligation,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And we do complement each other because
Speaker 2: we are able to move quickly. We're able to take
Speaker 2: risks that perhaps they could not, and that means that
Speaker 2: we can go into things knowing that they may fail
Speaker 2: if we believe that the potential return is large enough.
Speaker 2: In that regard a little bit more like a venture capitalist.
Speaker 2: Venture capitalists know that some of the companies they invest
Speaker 2: in will fail, but their view is that if I
Speaker 2: invest a million dollars and it fails, the most I
Speaker 2: can lose is million dollars. If I invest a million
Speaker 2: dollars in it succeeds, it may be worth twenty million
Speaker 2: dollars very quickly. So I can afford to fail actually
Speaker 2: quite often and still come out highly successful. For governments,
Speaker 2: it's actually much harder to do that because accountability mechanisms
Speaker 2: are somewhat skewed, quite honestly.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: For example, the Department of Energy in the United States
Speaker 2: has played an absolutely fantastic role in investing in early
Speaker 2: stage technologies, and companies like Tesla, for example, and a
Speaker 2: whole range of companies have done very very well based
Speaker 2: upon early research. But it just took one investment that
Speaker 2: went bad called Cylindra.
Speaker 1: The US company that made solar panels. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, then Vice President Biden announced that the company
Speaker 1: would receive a loan of five hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: million dollars guaranteed by the US Department of Energy. Cylinder
Speaker 1: ended up going bankrupt in twenty eleven and defaulting on
Speaker 1: that loan. The same program also made a loan of
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty five million dollars to Tesla. That
Speaker 1: company is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and
Speaker 1: yet Cylinder's bankruptcy continues to be used by some members
Speaker 1: of the government to criticize plans to invest in cleantech
Speaker 1: through legislations like the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 2: They just took one investment that went bad for all
Speaker 2: of the congressional committees, all of the newspapers, the gotcha
Speaker 2: types to give that a hard time, and so that
Speaker 2: would illustrate the problems that the governments can have that
Speaker 2: philanthropy does not now.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty two report by Climate Work said that only
Speaker 1: two percent of philanthropy dollars went toward climate mitigation in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. That's about twelve and a half billion
Speaker 1: dollars depending on how you count. But it's a tiny
Speaker 1: percentage of the eight hundred billion dollars that is given
Speaker 1: out as philanthropy every year. Why is that number given
Speaker 1: to climate solo?
Speaker 2: It is interesting how philanthropists have over the literally the
Speaker 2: last five to ten years, started to take climate change seriously.
Speaker 2: I mean ten years ago there was very little funding.
Speaker 2: There's still not enough, and that means that every dollar
Speaker 2: allocated has to be used carefully. So, for example, I
Speaker 2: have the privilege of being the CEO of the Basos
Speaker 2: Earth Fund, which is a ten billion dollar grant fund
Speaker 2: that will be dispersed entirely this decade. That sounds like
Speaker 2: a lot of money. It is to me and you,
Speaker 2: but it's a small amount of money compared to the needs.
Speaker 2: So we have to make sure that it is truly
Speaker 2: lever it, and you can leverage in several ways. Now,
Speaker 2: when we talk about the two percent of total philanthropy
Speaker 2: that's going for climate mitigation, I've got to remember, in
Speaker 2: addition to that, there's funding for nature, for example, which
Speaker 2: also helps climate, And there's funding for food and agriculture,
Speaker 2: which done right, also helps climate. There's funding for adaptation.
Speaker 2: But all in all, it's still knowing there enough. I
Speaker 2: do agree with that.
Speaker 1: Forty five philanthropic organizations signed up to the Giving to
Speaker 1: Amplify Earth Action initiative at Davos. The initiative aims to
Speaker 1: close the three trillion dollars of annual climate finance that
Speaker 1: needs to be met to get to the goals of
Speaker 1: the Paris Agreement. That's equivalent to about three percent of
Speaker 1: the world's GDP. How do you think philanthropic organizations can
Speaker 1: achieve that?
Speaker 2: So, if you think about philanthropy today, as we discussed earlier,
Speaker 2: let's imagine it's roughly fifteen billion dollars a year. It
Speaker 2: would not be inc receivable at all to double that
Speaker 2: in the next few years. Should that happen, that's thirty
Speaker 2: billion dollars a year. Think about that, that's like one
Speaker 2: percent of the total investment that is required. So that
Speaker 2: one percent is a small tail wagging hopefully a bigger dog.
Speaker 2: So it needs to do it thoughtfully, and I think
Speaker 2: that's the goal that some of us in the philanthropic
Speaker 2: community have had. Wouldn't it be useful if we could
Speaker 2: bring the different pieces of the jigs or puzzle together,
Speaker 2: the different actors and focus on, let's say an issue.
Speaker 2: The issue could be preventing deforestation, it could be getting
Speaker 2: rid of the internal combustion engine, it could be shifting
Speaker 2: diets towards plant based food. You need governments at the table,
Speaker 2: you need corporates at the table, you need carbon credits
Speaker 2: at the table, philanthropy at the table. And it's only
Speaker 2: when you do that that you actually then can get
Speaker 2: that kind of synergy.
Speaker 1: So one way in which institutions, especially government institutions, but
Speaker 1: also institutions that depend on donors giving money, justify their
Speaker 1: presence their work is to sometimes measure it in how
Speaker 1: many more dollars for every dollar they spent were invested
Speaker 1: for those causes famously, NASA does that to justify that
Speaker 1: a space program is necessary for the United States. And
Speaker 1: then multiplier is large. If you're thinking of using thirty
Speaker 1: billion dollars to get to three trillion dollars, your multiplier
Speaker 1: is one hundred and none of the organizations I've looked
Speaker 1: at have ever produced that kind of number, So how
Speaker 1: do you think that will work?
Speaker 2: So that would be hubris to assume that if there
Speaker 2: weren't philanthropy, nothing else would happen. I mean a lot
Speaker 2: of it would happen anyway, because we have some good
Speaker 2: governments out there, we have some good carbon credits, and
Speaker 2: we have some to companies that are wanting to invest
Speaker 2: in green So we don't need to over egg this
Speaker 2: issue in terms of overstating the importance of the leverage
Speaker 2: that philanthropy can have. Having said that, philanthropy can play
Speaker 2: a very useful role, and if you think about leverage,
Speaker 2: the easy and obvious way to think about it is
Speaker 2: we could de risk private investment. So private investors at
Speaker 2: the moment are not willing to go into certain technologies
Speaker 2: partly because it's risky. Sometimes it's country risk, sometimes it's
Speaker 2: technological risk. Price risk, policy risk. Philanthropy could help de
Speaker 2: risk that, but there are many many other ways of
Speaker 2: getting leaverage. I mean, an obvious one is influencing policy.
Speaker 2: For example, we could influence a global price on carbon
Speaker 2: of one hundred dollars a ton. I mean, wow, that
Speaker 2: would have leverage. But there are many many policies that
Speaker 2: are required. For example, something we're working on right now is,
Speaker 2: you know, everyone talks about green steel and cement, which
Speaker 2: is very important. The problem is actually not the technologist
Speaker 2: to produce it, it's finding buyers who in the near
Speaker 2: term will have to pay a little bit more for it.
Speaker 2: So it turns out that fifty percent of all the
Speaker 2: cement in the United States is actually purchased by governments,
Speaker 2: mainly local government, but also federal government. So one of
Speaker 2: the things we're doing is supporting a program that seeks
Speaker 2: to change procurement rules at the state and city level,
Speaker 2: and it's being very successful. That in turn is creating
Speaker 2: a demand, which in turn will drive down prices. And
Speaker 2: once you reach a demand of a certain percentage, you
Speaker 2: actually can cross a tipping point because then steel companies
Speaker 2: or cement companies understand the direction the wind is blowing
Speaker 2: in and really go all in sort of thing. So
Speaker 2: that's another example of laverage.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned that the BISOS Earth Fund is going
Speaker 1: to spend ten million dollars this decade. You spend about
Speaker 1: one point six billion dollars so far. Could you just
Speaker 1: walk us through what kind of projects you've funded so
Speaker 1: far and how do you go about choosing them?
Speaker 2: So, the way we go about choosing them is we
Speaker 2: try to ask ourselves what are the big transitions that
Speaker 2: are required this decade and next. So that includes eliminating
Speaker 2: the internal combustion engine, it includes greening financial markets, It
Speaker 2: includes shifting dyets toward more plant pased nutrition and so on,
Speaker 2: and they're about fifty of those. What we do we
Speaker 2: use an initiative called the System Change Lab, which we
Speaker 2: co run together with the World Resource Institute and others
Speaker 2: that are heavily involved in it. And what it does
Speaker 2: is it measures these fifty transitions and it asked where
Speaker 2: are they as they seek to approach tipping points? And
Speaker 2: then it asks what is the special source that seems
Speaker 2: to get some of these past those tipping points? And
Speaker 2: where are the bar that are preventing others? And so
Speaker 2: what we try to do is look at those and
Speaker 2: identify barriers that we could be helpful in removing. I'll
Speaker 2: give you an example of something we're thinking about right now.
Speaker 2: We now know that not only must we reduce carbon emissions,
Speaker 2: we've actually got to take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Now.
Speaker 2: The best possible technology for that is planting a tree,
Speaker 2: for example. So we have a very significant program of
Speaker 2: landscape restoration trying to put a coalition together to regreen
Speaker 2: or restore one hundred million hectares in Africa. We also
Speaker 2: have a program in the United States doing the same.
Speaker 2: Turns out now that thirty five African countries are really
Speaker 2: interested in doing this. It also turns out that we
Speaker 2: have technology that we can measure it. We're financing that
Speaker 2: as well. It also turns out that there's quite a
Speaker 2: bit of public and private money sitting on the sidelines.
Speaker 2: And whilst there are actually thousands of community groups in
Speaker 2: Africa that are very good at this, there are no
Speaker 2: intermediating institutions. We think is what could we do well.
Speaker 2: We could play a role getting the methodology and the
Speaker 2: satellite system to measure. We also could play a role
Speaker 2: in helping to create those intermediating institutions that would be
Speaker 2: an example of how we go about it. They also
Speaker 2: though we've you and I have come to the conclusion
Speaker 2: that simply that technology of photosynthesis is not enough to
Speaker 2: take everything out. So we're actually looking at some other
Speaker 2: ways of taking carbon out of the air through, for example,
Speaker 2: the possibility of ocean absorption, the possibility of weathering, where
Speaker 2: various chemical processes can take carbon dioxide. And even you know,
Speaker 2: there's some sort of frontier technologies that are nowhere close
Speaker 2: to commercialization, so no one's actually investing in them. For example,
Speaker 2: how do you take methane out of the atmosphere? Very
Speaker 2: very hard to do, But unless we invest now in that,
Speaker 2: we won't have the technologies we need twenty years from now,
Speaker 2: when it will sadly be essential.
Speaker 1: Now you're talking about carbon removal here, because we need
Speaker 1: to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It will
Speaker 1: be a big thing that we'll have to work on.
Speaker 1: But currently the majority of the problem is to try
Speaker 1: and actually reduce emissions. But given as a climate journalist
Speaker 1: covering this subject, just the sheer amount of intellectual capacity
Speaker 1: that is going towards the offset problem, which remains a
Speaker 1: very small market billion dollars two billion dollars relative to
Speaker 1: the three trillion dollars worth of mitigation work that needs
Speaker 1: to be done. Why do you think when you thought
Speaker 1: of the right example to talk about where philanthropy can
Speaker 1: make a difference, was carbon offsets or carbon markets the
Speaker 1: right place to try and invest money or even bring
Speaker 1: that up as the star example that philanthropy is helping improve.
Speaker 2: Oh, maybe I was not clear. We've allocated three billion
Speaker 2: dollars for nature, billion dollars for conservation, a billion dollars
Speaker 2: for restoration, and a billion dollars for food system transformation,
Speaker 2: and we're still obviously allocating that money at the base
Speaker 2: fund of that first the conservation A very very small
Speaker 2: fraction of that, I mean so far it would be
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe ten million dollars of that would
Speaker 2: be to help set standards for the carbon markets. We
Speaker 2: are spending one hundred and ten million dollars of grants
Speaker 2: in the Congo basin to help government and civil society
Speaker 2: conserve nature that carbon markets don't play a role in
Speaker 2: that at all, and we're doing exactly the same in
Speaker 2: Latin America and tropical Andes, for example. I think they
Speaker 2: do have a role, but much more important is conserving nature,
Speaker 2: because that's not a minor part of the issue. Rural
Speaker 2: space is responsible for more than a third of emissions,
Speaker 2: and so we really have to address that.
Speaker 1: After the break. Should Amazon be doing more to cut
Speaker 1: its own emissions? And what happens to the money when
Speaker 1: the decisive decade is done? The visos Hearth Fund was
Speaker 1: completely new when you started it, and the money is
Speaker 1: supposed to be spent by twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: What happens next, Well, yes, I left a job where
Speaker 2: we had seventeen hundred people, and then I was employee
Speaker 2: number one in my new job, and we're sort of
Speaker 2: ramping up basically, you know, we're willing to take risks.
Speaker 2: We should inject funds very thoughtfully but boldly, and we'll
Speaker 2: see if it works, and we'll do our best to
Speaker 2: make sure it works. And if it does work, we
Speaker 2: will then ramp that up together with partners. And we
Speaker 2: do nothing on our own. We don't simply write a
Speaker 2: check and say could you come back tell us how
Speaker 2: you're doing a year from now. So, for example, the
Speaker 2: Congo Basin is the most precious ecosystem imaginable. It sequesters
Speaker 2: more carbon than the Amazon and Southeast Asia tropical forest
Speaker 2: combined and is massively threatened at the moment, so we
Speaker 2: wanted to go in there. But we've got to be honest,
Speaker 2: this is a difficult place to work in. Some parts
Speaker 2: of these countries are very remote and sometimes governance is
Speaker 2: not what it should be. So what we did we said,
Speaker 2: we'll gather nine leading institutions, mainly NGOs, but scientific institutions
Speaker 2: that have deep roots there. We said, look, we're going
Speaker 2: to finance all of you. You have two jobs. Job
Speaker 2: number one is within your own sphere of expertise. You
Speaker 2: have to deliver the way we've discussed with you. Thing
Speaker 2: number two, you've got to be part of a team
Speaker 2: with us, so that as a team, for the first
Speaker 2: time ever, we're able to engage at the head of
Speaker 2: state level at any level we like, including with other donors.
Speaker 2: We're now working with a number of European donors. Let's
Speaker 2: do it together kind of thing. And then we would
Speaker 2: have full time per person that would be helping to
Speaker 2: oversee and drive that joint program together. So that's the
Speaker 2: sort of way we would work.
Speaker 1: And so what happens after twenty thirty when the money
Speaker 1: is all spent.
Speaker 2: Well, of course, this is the decisive decade, and the
Speaker 2: next decade will also be decisive. The reason this is
Speaker 2: especially decisive is if we don't get it right this
Speaker 2: decade actually next decade, it will be impossibly expensive to
Speaker 2: do anything and will quite frankly be too late. So
Speaker 2: I have a full time job from now to twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: Clearly there will be all kinds of needs for the
Speaker 2: twenty thirties as well.
Speaker 1: So one example then would be COP fifteen in December,
Speaker 1: which has been called a Paris for nature, set out
Speaker 1: this goal of protecting thirty percent of land and oceans
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty. Ambitious goal, something that had been called
Speaker 1: for for years, and now all these governments have come
Speaker 1: together and agreed upon it. But as soon as that
Speaker 1: highlevel goal is agreed upon, it becomes a minefield. The
Speaker 1: number of questions about what does that really mean, how
Speaker 1: do we measure it? Does it mean no humans can
Speaker 1: do anything in that land? How do countries in different
Speaker 1: parts with different capabilities and wealth work on those Is
Speaker 1: that something that you're working on to try and create
Speaker 1: clearer understanding of what thirty by thirty would mean, because
Speaker 1: it's really important that we not just tackle the climate crisis,
Speaker 1: but the biodiversity crisis and the solution sometimes overlap.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, I mean I think you've clarified the issue
Speaker 2: very helpfully. We need a political commitment based upon good science,
Speaker 2: and that's what we've now got. Getting to thirty will
Speaker 2: be a huge achievement. It will need to double essentially
Speaker 2: protection on land, and it will need to more than
Speaker 2: double protection of the ocean. And we've got seven years
Speaker 2: to do it. So this is difficult. And as you say,
Speaker 2: now the real challenge begins, which thirty percent and what
Speaker 2: does it mean to protect? And I think there definitions
Speaker 2: of what it means to protect pretty well. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean totally and utterly no humans in it. On the contrary,
Speaker 2: in many parts it is indigenous people who live there
Speaker 2: that are responsible for doing a very good job at
Speaker 2: the moment in protection. And part of the way of
Speaker 2: ensuring thirty by thirty is to give indigenous people more
Speaker 2: rights and the ability to protect those rights. So, for example,
Speaker 2: in Montreal, the Canadian government announced a massive increase in
Speaker 2: its own protected areas in four areas that are going
Speaker 2: to be overseen by First nations. But as you say,
Speaker 2: country by country governments need to decide do they want
Speaker 2: to really be part of it. If they do want
Speaker 2: to be part of it, we need to bring in
Speaker 2: whatever support we can. And yesterday here in Davos, we
Speaker 2: had ministers from Indonesia, from the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Speaker 2: from Bangladesh, Ghana, together with people like John Kerry and
Speaker 2: the German government, the British government, and then philanthropists like
Speaker 2: Based or so A Fund, the More Foundation and others
Speaker 2: that care about this and basically are setting up a
Speaker 2: process by which we would be available to be helpful
Speaker 2: as a team to major countries that are serious about this.
Speaker 1: Is climate philanthropy the new superyacht. Will we see competition
Speaker 1: for who can do it bigger and better.
Speaker 2: I've been impressed by how philanthropists are able to work together.
Speaker 2: That's not to say that from time to time there
Speaker 2: would not be some competition, and I have not witnessed
Speaker 2: that so far. I, on the contrary, have witnessed an
Speaker 2: enthusiasm for working together. So for example, a year ago,
Speaker 2: when we were concerned that this thirty by thirty political
Speaker 2: momentum was slowing and only like fifty countries had said
Speaker 2: they thought it was a good idea, we worked with
Speaker 2: other philanthropists, and as a group we were a able
Speaker 2: to put five billion dollars of grants on the table,
Speaker 2: you know, in public at the United Nations General Assembly.
Speaker 2: We were able to say, look, we're serious, this is
Speaker 2: funds that we would if you guys can come up
Speaker 2: with an agreement on thirty by thirty, we're willing to
Speaker 2: put this totally online. And that was remarkable. I mean,
Speaker 2: that was put together within two months. That whole idea.
Speaker 2: I found it quite inspiring, and I actually think working
Speaker 2: together is really important. Now. Having said that, one of
Speaker 2: the great things about some modern philanthropies is that they're
Speaker 2: based upon wealth that came because of great ambition and
Speaker 2: brilliance on the part of their leaders. And actually that's
Speaker 2: pretty valuable in our space. For too long, environmentalism has
Speaker 2: been very well intentioned and often excellent, but hasn't necessarily
Speaker 2: benefited from the kind of leadership that some modern philanthropists
Speaker 2: can be helpful in providing.
Speaker 1: Amazon made Bezos fabulously wealthy, gave him the money to
Speaker 1: be able to create this Earth Fund, but Amazon's emissions
Speaker 1: continue to go up. In twenty twenty one, they increased
Speaker 1: eighteen percent, and Bezos is the chair of the Earth Fund,
Speaker 1: but he's also the chair of Amazon. Why is it
Speaker 1: that Amazon continues to not go down the path that
Speaker 1: you would expect reduce their emissions in line with what's
Speaker 1: needed for meeting climate goals.
Speaker 2: Well, just to be clear, I work for the basis
Speaker 2: Earth Fund. I do not work for Amazon. It's a
Speaker 2: totally different organization.
Speaker 1: But you must have conversations with Jeff Bezos about Amazon's
Speaker 1: progress given the skill of the organization.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing I would say is that this week
Speaker 2: hearing Davos, for example, members of the Climate Pledge, which
Speaker 2: is a group of businesses which was started by Amazon
Speaker 2: that is committed to net zero, ten years ahead of
Speaker 2: what the science tells us we need to be.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, so that's at zero by twenty forty four.
Speaker 2: Amazon and each of those each of those companies have
Speaker 2: plans in place, and that ranges from trying to address
Speaker 2: their scope three emissions, which is the entire supply chain
Speaker 2: and that's very hard to do, to electrifying their their
Speaker 2: delivery fleets for example. So you know, this is a journey,
Speaker 2: and there will be times when when emissions go up,
Speaker 2: either because your sales go up or for some other reason.
Speaker 2: The point is to keep your eye on the prize
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty five, twenty thirty, twenty forty and so on.
Speaker 1: Now you've worked on climate issues for a long time,
Speaker 1: but we happen to be at this juncture facing two
Speaker 1: kinds of trends. One, we hit a record greenhouse gas
Speaker 1: emissions in twenty twenty two. Two we have never spent
Speaker 1: more money, more effort, more talent, more people power on
Speaker 1: trying to tackle the climate crisis. How do you live
Speaker 1: in this two track world?
Speaker 2: It's very well put. If you take two experts, well meaning,
Speaker 2: good people and you say how we doing, one will
Speaker 2: say it's fantastic, you know, I mean, the price of
Speaker 2: solar energy has fallen ninety nine point six percent since
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the
Speaker 2: White House in nineteen seventy nine. And they'll give many
Speaker 2: statements like that. And one hundred and twenty countries are
Speaker 2: committed to net zero, one hundred and thirty trillion dollars
Speaker 2: of assets under management are committed to net zero. Unbelievable.
Speaker 2: And then you talk to the other one. They say,
Speaker 2: you know, we're heading off a cliff like a bunch
Speaker 2: of lemmings more call Wilm.
Speaker 1: They never put out more greenhouse gas emissions. There's never
Speaker 1: been more tension in the world in the last thirty
Speaker 1: years of knowing. That's right, that climate change is a problem,
Speaker 1: geopolitics is fragmented, the immediate crises are growing in number,
Speaker 1: and terms like polycrises are being created.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely correct. Last year, what two point five trillion
Speaker 2: dollars were invested in the energy sector as a whole.
Speaker 2: Of that, two point five one trillion was in fossil fuels,
Speaker 2: and one point five trillion was in clean energy, including
Speaker 2: energy efficiency and all the renewables so to speak. You
Speaker 2: can look at that number and say that's incredible. I mean,
Speaker 2: and well over half of the new generating capacity last
Speaker 2: year was from renewables. Unbelievable. But if we're going to
Speaker 2: stay within one point five the renewables need to be
Speaker 2: three times as fast, and we need to close nine
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five coal plants every single year. So
Speaker 2: sort of the analogy is sort of it's you know,
Speaker 2: the dog chasing the bus, and the dog is running
Speaker 2: faster and faster. That's us trying to solve the problem.
Speaker 2: And we've never run so fast, and we're we're so
Speaker 2: pleased with ourselves. The bus is accelerating away, and of
Speaker 2: course the dog could keep trying, running harder and harder,
Speaker 2: but will never catch up. And so, you know, continue
Speaker 2: the analogy. The dog needs, you know, an electric bike
Speaker 2: or something to we need a new way of doing things,
Speaker 2: and that's exactly what we you know, we and many
Speaker 2: others are focusing on. It's yesterday we when we launched
Speaker 2: this idea of could we work together on the thirty
Speaker 2: by thirty, you know, so instead of you know, thirty
Speaker 2: different NGOs and twelve different governments and six different multi
Speaker 2: national organizations and so many developers of carbon markets, all
Speaker 2: trying to be helpful to the democratic Republic of Congo
Speaker 2: or Brazil or Indonesia, and you know, all doing their best,
Speaker 2: and some of it is excellent, not adding up. What
Speaker 2: would it take to actually get it to add up.
Speaker 2: That's what we have to That's the electric bike for
Speaker 2: the dog chasing the bus. This was a great conversation.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Indeed, philanthropy's relationship to climate is a complicated one. It
Speaker 1: feels like we shouldn't have to rely on the whims
Speaker 1: of billionaires to fund projects that are necessary for humans
Speaker 1: to thrive, and yet when not enough money is available
Speaker 1: for those projects, we need all the help we can get.
Speaker 1: That shouldn't mean that where the money comes from or
Speaker 1: goes to gets less scrutiny. Thanks so much for listening
Speaker 1: to Zero. If you liked this episode, please take a
Speaker 1: moment to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify,
Speaker 1: Send it to a friend, or send it to someone
Speaker 1: who subscribes to Amazon Prime. Get in touch at zero
Speaker 1: pod at Blomberg dot Net. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd
Speaker 1: and senior producer is Christine driscoll Ar. Theme music is
Speaker 1: composed by Wonderly Special. Thanks to Kira Bindram and Robin
Speaker 1: Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum for letting us use
Speaker 1: the podcasting studios in Davos. I'm Akshatrati back next week.