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How Jeff Bezos’ $10B Earth Fund Has Fought Climate Change—So Far

The Bezos Earth Fund has committed billions to conservation, cities, food and the Amazon rainforest as Jeff Bezos works toward giving away $10 billion by 2030.

In 2020, a year before stepping down as Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos pledged $10 billion to tackle some of the world’s biggest climate challenges by 2030 and unveiled the Bezos Earth Fund. The Amazon founder called climate change “the biggest threat to our planet,” promising that the money would support “scientists, activists, NGOs” and offer “a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.” Six years later, the fund has awarded at least $2.4 billion across over 371 grants, according to its website. With around three-quarters of the pledge still to be allocated, the fund’s efforts have fallen behind schedule, though it says it remains committed to disbursing the full $10 billion by 2030. Andrew Steer, former head of the World Resources Institute, became the Earth Fund’s first president and CEO in 2021. Last year, he was succeeded by Tom Taylor, the longtime Amazon executive who served on Bezos’ senior team (known as the S-Team) and once ran the company’s Alexa division. Bezos’s newlywed wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, serves as the Earth Fund’s vice chair.

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The Earth Fund says it doesn’t “just write checks and walk away.” But how its projects are chosen remains largely opaque. Nor does it accept unsolicited proposals, saying its grantmaking is directed toward programs already identified on its website. Therefore, the grants themselves offer the clearest picture of the fund’s priorities. While far from exhaustive, the list below includes some of the Earth Fund’s largest and most noteworthy donations to date.

Phoenix Species Project: $100 million pledged in 2026

In 2021, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and biologist Wes Sechrest met with Bezos and Sánchez to discuss various........

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