Amazon pledges to meet Paris climate goals 10 years early

In a great move to combat climate change, the e-commerce behemoth Amazon has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040, 10 years ahead of schedule.

Jeff Bezos, the founder and Chief Executive of the company, announced that Amazon is the first company to join an initiative called the Climate Pledge, a pact to help reach the organization reach the goals of the Paris climate agreement 10 years early. Bezos also announced that he will reach out to the leaders of other organizations to become a part of the pact.

As part of the process to reach its goal, Bezos has announced a $100 million reforestation initiative. Further, 100,000 new electric delivery vans will be purchased from Rivian, a Michigan-based company, in a bid to move away from diesel vehicles, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of the organization. The first of these vehicles will be introduced in 2021 while the fleet will be operational fully by 2030.

The announcement was made when the Bezos, the richest man in the world, was in conversation with former United Nations climate chief, Christiana Figueres at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.

This move comes just a day before the Global Climate Change, a worldwide initiative to demand action against climate change. Among the demonstrators are more than 1,000 employees of Amazon who plan to walk off the job to protest the company’s inaction against climate change and the lack of transparency into energy use.

Unfortunately, Amazon is known to have a massive environmental footprint as it delivers around 1 billion packages to customers only in the United States. Further, the Amazon Web Services is known for the gargantuan amounts of electricity it uses to power its data centres.

However, these new initiatives by the tech giant is a step in the right direction. We hope that more such companies will come together to make the world a better place for the generations to come.