April 22nd is a very important day: it’s my granddaughter’s eleventh birthday (which is a YO)! It also happens to be Earth Day, a day of pronouncements focused on saving the planet so that my granddaughter and all grandchildren have a healthy earth to call home a generation from now.
Unfortunately, despite some fancy headlines, philanthropy is letting the planet and our grandchildren down. As Michael Kavate wrote in Inside Philanthropy six months ago, “Philanthropy Isn’t Spending Enough on Climate Change….” He quotes extensively a report by the people who know more about this than just about anybody, the ClimateWorks Foundation. “While philanthropic resources alone cannot match the trillions of dollars in investment needed to decarbonize the global economy, philanthropy has a unique and critical role to play in achieving this target. Philanthropy can increase global ambition, support innovative solutions, scale proven mitigation strategies, and drive collaborative actions.”
So along comes Jeff Bezos with a $10 billion commitment to address climate change. Wow…sort of. It’s kind of a macho thing: Gates saves us from Covid, Zuckerberg saves democracy, and Bezos saves the planet. Bezos is named philanthropist of the year by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. First, he didn’t give away $10 billion, he pledged to give it away over TEN years. Year One was less than $1 billion. That’s 0.5% of his net worth, in a year when his wealth increased by $65 billion! Contrast this with his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, who actually gave away $6 billion, 10% of her wealth.
Second, Bezos will likely realize a 70%-plus tax break, so he’s actually taking money from the government to spend as he, not the public, thinks best. In other words, he’s being generous with your money.
Third, ten years? The climate crisis can’t wait ten years. I watched again an episode from one of my favorite 2014 television series, “Newsroom,” which painted a very dire, albeit entertaining, picture of our planet’s future (in short, it’s too late). Hannah Roeyer, lead author of the ClimateWorks report “Funding Trends: Climate Change Mitigation Philanthropy” is relatively more optimistic, but cautions, “The funding we’re seeing right now is simply not enough given the 10 years we have to turn this crisis around.”
Foundations and individuals give less than $10 billion in total per year to fight climate disaster, around 2% of all philanthropic giving. Equally problematic, only 1.3% of that climate funding goes to organizations with BIPOC leadership (see the Climate Funders Justice Pledge– a commitment to reach 30% funding to BIPOC-led groups within two years–spearheaded by the Donors of Color Network). But the solution is not moving money from one cause to another; the solution is increasing the size of the philanthropic pie.
Back in 2018 twenty nine foundations came together to sign the Global Climate Action Summit Pledge: $4 billion for climate mitigation over 5 years. This could be looked at as an important step in the right direction, but was increased funding at the expense of supporting civil rights, gun safety, access to healthcare, reducing poverty; OR was it funded by digging into bloated stock portfolios? Of the 29 GCAS pledgers, only three have signed onto the Crisis Charitable Commitment and should be applauded for digging deeper into their endowments than their peers: The George Gund Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
It is simply inexcusable for foundations and wealthy people to defend saving their endowments or riches for a rainy day. We are in a time of crises caused or magnified by the pandemic. Americans for Tax Fairness found the combined wealth of billionaires in America jumped from $2.95 trillion to $4.56 trillion since the pandemic began. That’s an increase of $1.62 trillion, or 55 percent. “This perversely accelerated growth of fortunes of people who are already extremely rich came as more than 77 million Americans lost their jobs and more than 30 million Americans became sick with COVID-19.”
Two weeks ago billionaires John and Laura Arnold announced that they will be giving away 5% of their wealth every year as part of a pledge organized by Global Citizen. The Arnolds are now part of a holy trinity of billionaires who actually ARE giving at or above CCC’s new Charitable Standard, joining MacKenzie Scott and Jack Dorsey in digging deep to help society. For Jeff Bezos, giving 5% of his wealth per year would equal $10 billion each year, not over ten years. So yes, Jeff, you can and should give away $10 billion to address climate change…every year!