Prof. Aseem Prakash and colleague Prof. Nives Dolšak on Forbes discussing the Jeff Bezos Earth Fund:
The Bezos Earth Fund (BEF) is giving away $791 million to support climate action. Much of this money will go to well-established NGOs. NGO organizations plan to use the BEF grants for projects such as protecting the emerald Edge coastal rainforest, launching a satellite to track methane emissions, monitoring carbon emissions, and restoring mangroves. These are important climate projects undertaken by competent NGOs.
BEF’s current funding decisions suggest that its implicit theory of climate change includes all of the above: conservation, technology, and legal action. We suggest the real problem is political, specifically the backlash from the communities that will suffer from decarbonization. Bezos is a brilliant thinker. He pioneered online shopping, created Kindle, and basically founded the cloud computing sector. He is a change agent, not “more of the same” type of a guy. Although BEF’s 2020 funding decisions are “more of the same” type, we hope future funding will reflect a new theory of change.