Jeff Bezos Announces Bezos Earth Fund Pledges $1 Billion for Nature and People

Deputy Secretary General Amina Muhammad, Secretary Kerry, Andrew, welcome to Climate Week everybody. Lauren and I are happy to be here. This is an important week in a critical year, and what I think we all know is a decisive decade. Let me begin by congratulating those of you who are signatories of the pledge. I know there are a bunch of you out here, and as Kara just said, 86 new signatories bring us to 201. It's pretty cool. Major corporations, all of us committed to reaching the Paris Accord goals 10 years early, by 2040. Why are all these companies doing this? Well, like all of us, they care about the planet. We all live on it. But it's also because they see that there is a new economic world emerging, and they want to be part of it. You want to drive this new economy and not let it drive you. So thank you all of you for your bold leadership in helping to fight climate change. Tonight I'd like to speak about nature. The loss of nature and the changing climate aren't really two separate problems. They are two sides of the same coin. We simply cannot address climate change without reversing the loss of nature and vice versa. Let me tell you something I know for sure: when people hanker for the good old days and glamorize the past, they are almost always wrong. By almost all metrics, life is better than it was in the past. Global poverty rates are lower, infant mortality and life expectancies are better, and education rates are higher. But there is a notable exception: the natural world is not better today than it was 500 years ago. At that time we enjoyed unspoiled forests, clean rivers, and the pristine air of a pre-industrial age. We can reverse this anomaly, and we have to. By coming together with the right focus and the right ingenuity, we can have the benefits of our modern lives and have a thriving natural world. Nature provides the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. Nature is our life support system, and it's fragile. I was reminded of this just this July when I went into space with Blue Origin. I'd heard that seeing the Earth from space changes one's point of view of the world, but I was not prepared for just how much that would be true. Living down here, the world and the atmosphere seemed vast and they seemed stable. But looking back at Earth from up there, the atmosphere seems thin and the world finite. Both beautiful, both fragile. That's why tonight we're announcing a $1 billion, billion dollars to be provided as grants by the Bezos Earth Fund for the conservation of nature. This $1 billion will support implementation of the 30 by 30 commitment, a goal to protect 30% of land and sea by the year 2030. The goal already has the support of more than 70 countries, and the number is growing. We know from science that conserving 30% of well-chosen land and maritime areas can protect 80% of plant and animal species and secure 60% of carbon stocks. I know that many conservation efforts have failed in the past. They haven't delivered. Top-down programs that fail to include communities, fail to include indigenous peoples that live in the local area, they've systematically not worked. We won't make those same mistakes. We'll support a new generation of programs that are led by the local communities, that focus on livelihoods and incentives, and offer better paths to prosperity. We'll choose regions and countries where needs and opportunities are great, where leadership is already strong, and where there's a genuine commitment to put local communities and indigenous peoples at the center of the conservation programs. Beginning this year, we'll focus on the Congo Basin, the Tropical Andes, and on maritime conservation in the Pacific. We won't do anything alone. We've been encouraged by the rising tide of concern for nature, and we've been working hard with other philanthropists and donors to put together a package of support that can enable 30 by 30 to get up and running right away. This announcement tonight is the first of a three-part nature strategy by the Bezos Earth Fund. While this addresses conservation, later elements will cover restoration and food system transformation. I'm delighted to be joined this evening by Amina Muhammad, Deputy Secretary General of the UN. This is a very important week for the UN General Assembly, and we're very grateful to you for your leadership and your presence tonight. Thank you. We also have my friend John Kerry. John is the US Special Envoy on Climate Change. I have personal experience working with John, and I know how tireless he can be. It is due to John's efforts that the Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian was able to get out of prison in Iran. And trust me, this guy is tireless, and he's already using that energy traveling around the world working on climate change. John, we're grateful. Thank you for the vital role you're playing in making the US a leader on this issue. We look forward to working with partners, many partners, in this adventure. This is a big job. It will take many allies. Thank you.