Jeff Bezos, Big Philanthropy & Climate Change

<p>In episode 67 we look at the recent announcement by the world’s richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, that he is going to donate $10bn to tackle global climate issues. We ask: what do we know so far, what has the reaction been, and what does this story highlight about the key issues when it comes to philanthropy currently? Including:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Does Bezos use of his own Instagram channel to make the announcement reflect a desire on part of big donors to control their own narrative, much as populist politicians have harnessed Twitter etc. to speak directly to voters?)</li> <li>Is Bezos’ decision to focus on climate issues an easy one, because it is the obvious cause right now; or a brave one because he knows it will bring scrutiny of Amazon’s own environmental impact?</li> <li>Will this result in more big donors getting involved in climate issues, because it puts a marker down; or will they be crowded out by the scale of Bezos philanthropic resources?</li> <li>Given Bezos has previous pitched his interest in fairly radical ideas such as space travel and extra-planetary expansion as the best way of securing the planet’s future, does this new fund represent an acknowledgment that we also need to focus on shorter-term solutions?</li> <li>What form is this new vehicle going to take? (Foundation, DAF, LLC etc?)</li> <li>Will it have a limited life (i.e. is the aim to spend all of the $10bn as soon as possible, or build for the longer term?)</li> <li>Will it fund advocacy and lobbying, or just “direct services”?</li> <li>Bezos says that new vehicle will “fund any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.” Who is going to assess those “possibilities”? Will the process be democratised, or will it end up concentrating a huge amount of power in the hands of a small number of unelected people?</li> <li>In the reaction to the story, what has been the balance of praise, scrutiny and cynicism?</li> <li>Is the donation not big enough (because it is only 7% of Bezos’s to