Bezos sets up $10B fund to fight climate change

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has announced he plans to spend 10 billion US dollars of his own fortune to help fight "the devastating impact" of climate change.

The world’s richest man took to Instagram on Monday to say that the Bezos Earth Fund would start giving grants this summer to scientists, activists and non-profit organisations working to protect Earth.

“I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change”, Bezos said in the post.

Amazon has an enormous carbon footprint - the online retailer relies on fossil fuels to power planes, trucks and vans in order to ship billions of items all around the world.

Last year, Amazon officials said the company would work to have 100% of its energy use come from solar panels and other renewable energy by 2030.

Bezos, who founded Amazon 25 years ago, has a stake in the company that is worth more than 100 billion US dollars.

But despite being among the richest people in the world, Bezos only recently became active in donating money to causes, as other billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have done.

In 2018, he started another fund, committing 2 billion US dollars of his own money to open preschools in low-income neighbourhoods and give money to nonprofits that help homeless families.