Tycoon launches fund vs climate change

HIS COMPANY is often criticized for its environmental record, but Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the world’s richest man, said Monday that he was committing

$10 billion to a new fund to tackle climate change.

In a post to his 1.4 million followers on Instagram, the e-commerce tycoon said the Bezos Earth Fund would “fund scientists, activists, NGOs -- any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.”

“Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” said Bezos, whose net worth is estimated to be around $130 billion.

Hundreds of Amazon

employees last month signed a blog criticizing the online retail giant’s climate policies and demanding it do more to tackle climate change.

Amazon has been accused of creating vast amounts of waste from the packaging it uses for doorstep deliveries, as well as for the greenhouse gas emissions from huge fleets of vehicles.

The company, which in December said its workforce had hit

750,000, has also been denounced over its carbon footprint because of the high energy consumption of its server farms for its lucrative cloud computing activities.

“I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share,” Bezos said in his announcement on Monday.