In response to the creation of Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and the publication of its latest sustainability report, Greenpeace USA Senior Corporate Campaigner Elizabeth Jardim said:
“Despite high level climate commitments from Amazon and Jeff Bezos in the last year, Amazon is still doing more to accelerate the climate crisis than solve it. Amazon’s carbon emissions have actually increased 15% in the last year and the company continues to offer machine learning capabilities to fossil fuel companies like BP to transport, refine, and sell more oil and gas. [1].
“With its new report, Amazon has for only the second time in its history revealed its corporate carbon footprint, however, without more transparency about its energy use it is impossible to assess the real world impact of its renewable energy projects in phasing out fossil fuel use wherever it has operations. Amazon Web Services has a sprawling network of energy-hungry data centers in regions with very dirty energy, such as Northern Virginia [2]. Apple, Facebook, and Google are all more transparent than Amazon when it comes to reporting data center energy usage.
“For Amazon’s Climate Pledge to be a credible effort we need far more transparency than simply reporting emissions data. We need concrete plans for how companies will transition off fossil fuels in the next decade, as well as commitments to prioritize deep decarbonization pathways over carbon off-setting. We also await more details on the types of projects the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund will support.
“The science is clear. We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, scale up renewables, and elect politicians who support strong climate policies to have a livable planet. We hope that Amazon acts boldly and takes immediate steps to stop accelerating the climate crisis by ending its contracts with the oil and gas industry.”
[1] Greenpeace report: Oil in the Cloud: How Tech Companies are Helping Big Oil Profit from Climate Destruction https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/oil-in-the-cloud/
[2] Greenpeace report: Clicking Clean Virginia https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/click-clean-virginia/
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Contact: Valentina Stackl, [email protected], (734) 276 6260
