Ecommerce group Amazon has signed agreements with 71 renewable energy projects to meet its target of running all operations on clean energy by 2025, as it attempts to stem the emissions that have surged with its sales.
The company had reached 85 per cent renewable energy supply across its business by the end of 2021, it said, against a goal of 100 per cent within three years.
Amazon’s absolute carbon emissions rose 18 per cent year on year in 2021, as online orders surged during the pandemic.
The corporate purchase power agreements will supply renewable energy for the company’s offices, fulfilment centres and data centres. No financial details were disclosed.
Amazon said the investment in the 71 new projects around the world, including in Brazil, India and Poland, would add a combined 2.7 gigawatts of clean power to its renewables portfolio, bringing the total to 18.5GW across 21 countries. For comparison, the US added 19.6GW of solar capacity in 2021, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also committed $10bn of his estimated wealth of $148bn to the Bezos Earth Fund to fight climate change in this decade.
The Amazon announcement came in a series of corporate statements timed to coincide with climate week in New York, where criticism surfaced from US climate envoy John Kerry of the international financial institutions such as the World Bank in deploying finance related to climate change.
This followed a renewed call from former vice-president Al Gore for the resignation of the head of the World Bank David Malpass, who he accused of being sceptical about man-made climate change.
When asked whether he believed in human-driven global warming, at a panel discussion, Malpass repeatedly avoided giving a direct answer, saying finally that he was “not a scientist.”
The UN secretary-general António Guterres will convene a closed-door meeting of global leaders about climate change later on Wednesday.
UK climate policy concerns under Truss
In the UK, where green groups have raised concerns about the new prime minister’s commitment to action on climate change, the chief executives of three investor groups wrote to Liz Truss on Wednesday to ask her to uphold the government’s commitment to reaching net zero.
The heads of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, the Principles for Responsible Investment and the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association said it was “vital, and in the UK’s national and economic interest” to maintain momentum on decarbonisation. A clear policy framework and “a clear delivery plan for the transition of the real economy and financial services” was needed, they said.
Drax aims to supply credits from carbon capture
UK power group Drax said it was working on a deal with Respira International to supply the carbon finance group with 2mn “carbon dioxide removals” intended to be used by buyers to compensate for their emissions, as it sought to reposition itself as dominant in clean energy.
Drax generates energy by burning woody biomass, a contentious fuel source. It said it would generate the “removals” over five years by adding carbon capture technology to its biomass burning facilities in North America. The company said it had not yet decided which carbon credit standards body it would work with to validate the credits.
For FT coverage on New York climate week go to Climate Capital and Moral Money.
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