Foundations announce climate action commitments at COP26

November 3, 2021

Several foundations have announced commitments in support of climate action at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) being held this week in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Bezos Earth Fund pledged $2 billion — $1 billion each in support of landscape restoration and food systems transformation — as part of its $10 billion commitment to climate action announced in 2020. The commitment follows a $1 billion commitment announced in September in support of conservation initiatives. Landscape restoration efforts will initially focus on Africa — where planting trees on degraded landscapes, revitalizing grasslands, and integrating trees into farmland will, in turn, help provide climate benefits, food security, job creation, economic growth, soil fertility, and improved connectivity between protected areas — and the United States, where funding will support the restoration of landscapes that sequester high levels of carbon, protect biodiversity, and deliver community benefits. Efforts to transform food systems will include raising crop yields while shrinking the agricultural footprint, sharply reducing food loss and waste, shifting diets toward plant-based sources, and making agricultural supply chains more sustainable.

Together with the Rockefeller and IKEA foundations, the Bezos Earth Fund also launched the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet with the goal of unlocking $100 billion in public and private capital over ten years to accelerate investment in green energy and renewable power solutions in developing and emerging economies. Seeded with $1 billion from the Rockefeller and IKEA foundations in June and a new $500 million commitment from the Bezos Earth fund, the alliance will focus on addressing three challenges: power — reaching a billion people with reliable, renewable energy; climate — avoiding and averting four billion tons of carbon emissions; and jobs — building an on-ramp to opportunity by creating, enabling, or improving a hundred and fifty million jobs. Investment partners include the African Development Bank Group, Asian Development Bank, European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Finance Corporation, the United Kingdom's CDC Group, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and the World Bank.

The alliance also published a report, Transforming the Power System in Energy-Poor Countries (49 pages, PDF), which highlights the importance of galvanizing climate action in the eighty-one energy-poor countries, home to half the world's population, and calling for meeting growing demand with clean power, retiring and replacing existing coal assets with clean power, and ending energy poverty with distributed and renewable energy. In addition, the alliance opened a Global Call for Transformational Country Partnerships, inviting developing and emerging economies to apply for technical support and funding to advance ecosystems of clean energy projects.

Bloomberg Philanthropies also launched a campaign to close a quarter of the world's 2,445 remaining coal plants and all 519 proposed coal plants by 2025 by expanding its current efforts in seven countries and the European Union to an additional twenty-five developing countries where coal power is projected to grow rapidly. The expansion of the foundation's global coal program will accelerate three strategic approaches: policy and advocacy to push for "no coal" commitments and policies favorable to renewables; project development to identify and advance potential clean energy projects; and financing to fund pilot clean energy projects and encourage private-sector investment.

And seventeen funders, in partnership with the UK, Norway, Germany, the U.S., and the Netherlands, committed to investing $1.7 billion to help Indigenous and local communities protect the biodiverse tropical forests that are vital to mitigating climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemic risk. Funders making the pledge include the Ford, Children's Investment Fund, David and Lucile Packard, Good Energies, Oak, and William and Flora Hewlett foundations; the Christensen Fund; Sobrato Philanthropies; and, as part of the Protecting our Planet Challenge, Arcadia, the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Nia Tero, Rainforest Trust, Re:wild, and the Gordon and Betty Moore, Rob and Melani Walton, and Wyss foundations. According to the Ford Foundation, Indigenous peoples and local communities manage half the world's land and care for 80 percent of the planet's biodiversity, yet Indigenous communities and organizations receive less than 1 percent of the climate funding meant to reduce deforestation.

"The world is undergoing an economic upheaval, in which the poorest are falling farther behind and being battered by climate change's effects," said Rockefeller Foundation president Rajiv J. Shah. "Green energy transitions with renewable electrification are the only way to restart economic progress for all while at the same time stopping the climate crisis. Providing people with an on-ramp to the modern economy while making real, measurable progress against the existential threat of climate change, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet is one of the boldest, most transformative initiatives in our history."