September, 19 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Gary Cook, Senior Corporate Campaigner
202.297.2370
WASHINGTON
In response to Jeff Bezos's pledge that Amazon will meet its climate goals by 2040, Gary Cook, Senior Corporate Campaigner from Greenpeace USA, said:
"Greenpeace welcomes the commitment from Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos to the early achievement of Amazon's targets to meet the Paris Climate Agreement's 1.5 degree temperature threshold by 2040, but the company must be more transparent about how it plans to rapidly transition off of fossil fuels if it hopes to achieve this credibly.
"While the purchasing of one hundred thousand electric vans is certainly more than a token investment, Amazon is still one of the few companies who have not published its carbon footprint. We are still missing how fast its emissions are rising and a sense of what effort is needed to achieve these commitments.
"What we've seen in the past from Amazon is a significant disconnect from Amazon's environmental goals and its actions, and we continue to see this disconnect in today's announcement. You cannot credibly commit to achieving the 1.5 degree target and still support the oil industry expand the map in search of more oil.
"What we have seen thus far from Amazon Web Services, Amazon's Cloud Computing division, is a massive expansion in electricity demand powered mostly by fossil fuels, with only limited efforts to drive a renewable electricity supply.
"Amazon is known for speed, but if Jeff Bezos wants Amazon to be a leader on climate, he needs to spell out exactly how it is going to rapidly move the company off of fossil fuels to keep our planet within the 1.5 degree temperature threshold in the Paris Agreement that Amazon has now committed to. Throwing money at carbon offsets and continuing to support the oil giants find even more oil is an early indication that Jeff Bezos doesn't understand the transition that is needed."
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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