Skip to main content

Amazon pledges to meet Paris Agreement 10 years early

Amazon has ordered 100,000 new electric vehicles (EVs) as part of The Climate Pledge, a commitment which calls on signatories to be net zero carbon by 2040 – a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement. Companies signing the pledge agree to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis, implement decarbonisation strategies in line with the Paris Agreement and neutralise remaining emissions with additional offsets to achieve net zero annual carbon emissions. Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos says: “
September 26, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Amazon has ordered 100,000 new electric vehicles (EVs) as part of The Climate Pledge, a commitment which calls on signatories to be net zero carbon by 2040 – a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement.

Companies signing the pledge agree to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis, implement decarbonisation strategies in line with the Paris Agreement and neutralise remaining emissions with additional offsets to achieve net zero annual carbon emissions.

Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos says: “If a company with as much physical infrastructure as Amazon - which delivers more than 10 billion items a year - can meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early, then any company can.”

The new EVs are from Michigan-based producer Rivian and the first ones will start to deliver packages to customers in 2021. The company plans to have 10,000 EVs on the road by 2022 and the whole fleet on the road by 2030. This order follows Amazon’s initial $440 million investment in Rivian to accelerate the production of EVs.

The Climate Pledge stems from an agreement with Global Optimism, a group focused on environmental stewardship.

Christina Figueres, founding partner of Global Optimism, says: “If Amazon can set ambitious goals like this and make significant changes at their scale, we think many more companies should be able to do the same and will accept the challenge.”

Related Content

  • MobilityXX: ‘Women pay more for safe transport’
    October 8, 2021
    Laura Chace, new boss of ITS America, is fully behind the MobilityXX initiative, which promotes the role of women in transportation. She tells Adam Hill why the ’10 by 10’ target is so important…
  • Full analysis: Massive US EV infrastructure plan
    February 21, 2023
    The White House has announced a huge financial boost, new standards, and major progress for a made-in-America national network of EV chargers to support the future of US EV charging
  • ARTBA president: what happened to the hoverboards?
    October 28, 2019
    What keeps Dave Bauer up at night? David Arminas caught up with the head of ARTBA at his Washington, DC office during daylight hours Dave Bauer doesn’t really have many sleepless nights. He might sleep, though, with one eye open, just in case. “We have become a much more divided country politically,” says Bauer, president of ARTBA – American Road and Transportation Builders Association. “Whether you are thinking about federal government, or state or local government, there’s a hostility now in our politi
  • Road pricing is inevitable – because the ‘user pays’ principle is fair
    June 14, 2018
    We pay for roads through our taxes: the poor pay proportionately more, and effectively subsidise the rich. It would be fairer to accept the ‘user pays’ principle, says Dr John Walker. Road pricing is already used worldwide to combat congestion and pollution, to compensate for falling revenues from fuel duty (‘gas tax’), to provide an alternative (and fairer) means of charging motorists than the 80-year old fuel tax and to improve the efficiency of and expand transport infrastructure. However, it could and s