A Climate Gender Equity Fund has been established, according to US President Joe Biden, to support female “climate leaders.” At the COP 27 meeting hosted by the UN, he presented the new effort on Friday.
The fund will “leverage private sector contributions to provide women climate leaders with technical skills, networks, and capital to develop and scale climate solutions,” the White House noted in a statement. The fund is a collaboration between online retailer Amazon and government organization USAID.
“We must address gender inequalities that persist in climate finance, and ensure that female entrepreneurs have an equal seat at the table and access to the funding, networks, and technical support they need to scale climate solutions,” says Kara Hurst, vice president of global sustainability at Amazon.
Amazon said that “female-founded startups normally earn a portion of overall venture money, and that percentage plummeted during the epidemic,” demonstrating the seriousness of gender inequality in the climate area. The online retail behemoth, whose earnings surged during the epidemic, pledged to provide an additional $50 million from its Climate Pledge Fund for investments in companies with a focus on climate technologies that are created and managed by women. In addition, it will provide $3 million toward the inaugural seed money for the Climate Gender Equity Fund.
With Amazon matching USAID’s $3 million donation, the fund’s initial launch totals $6 million. According to the White House statement, the fund was also “supported” by a $21 million appropriation by USAID from the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund established by the Biden administration to emphasize its “commitment to gender-responsive climate action.” The latter initiative was started with $100 million in taxpayer money last year and is expected to cost twice that much this year in order to “advance economic security for women and girls globally.”
$386 billion in green energy subsidies and tax credits were part of a $430 billion spending package that Biden signed in August. In his speech at COP27, the president vowed to pursue a number of more ambitious environmental projects, such as “establishing an international Climate Hub for climate-smart agriculture,” “tightening emissions standards on the oil and natural gas industry,” and using Ukraine as a demonstration site for small modular reactor (SMR) “advanced nuclear” technology.
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