Amazon puts $2b in its clean energy fund

Amazon will fund a $2 billion venture capital fund to back companies developing "sustainable and decarbonizing technologies", the company announced Tuesday.

Amazon's new Climate Pledge Fund will invest in a range of companies, including manufacturing, transportation, logistics, energy and agriculture.

"Companies from around the world of all sizes and stages will be considered, from pre-product start-ups to well-established enterprises," Jeff Bezos, CEO of the online retailer, said in a statement.

"Each prospective investment will be judged on its potential to accelerate the path to zero carbon and help protect the planet for future generations."

The goal is to assist Amazon and other companies achieve "net zero" carbon emissions by 2040.

Amazon also pledged to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord by 2040, or 10 years ahead of the agreement's stated goal.

In 2015, nearly 200 nations, including oil exporters, agreed to hold global temperature rise below 2 C and to work toward limiting the increase to 1.5 C above preindustrial levels. That suggests an end to the use of fossil fuels before 2050.

US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2017.

"Compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025, according to the National Economic Research," Trump said at the time.

"In short, the agreement doesn't eliminate coal jobs — it just transfers those jobs out of the United States and ships them to foreign countries."

Amazon also said Tuesday that it plans to operate entirely on clean energy by 2025, or five years ahead of the stated goal in its climate pledge.

Verizon Communications, Infosys and Reckitt Benckiser Group have also signed the climate pledge.

In May 2019, thousands of employees submitted a proposal at the annual stockholders meeting asking Bezos to come up with a plan to reduce its carbon footprint.

In response, Amazon agreed to buy 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian and to invest $440 million in the manufacturer.

In February, Amazon earmarked $10 billion to create the Earth Fund to combat climate change. It will issue grants to fund research to "preserve and protect the natural world".

Bezos joins other billionaires backing climate research. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, and John Arnold, a natural gas trader, back Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a $1 billion fund that invests in experimental energy technologies.

In 2019, private equity and venture capital investment in clean energy technology totaled $10.5 billion. That's up 6 percent from 2018 and the highest total since 2010, reported Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

To date, Amazon said it has launched 91 renewable energy projects, including 31 utility-scale wind and solar project as well as 60 solar rooftops on fulfillment and sort centers around the world.

Combined, the projects deliver 8.6 million megawatt-hours of renewable energy a year, or enough to power 680,000 US homes, the company said.

Solar power production has increased from 2 billion kilowatt-hours in 2008 to about 93 billion a decade later — a 26-fold increase. But solar still accounted for about 1 percent of the nation's total energy production, the Pew Research Center reported.