President Joe Biden announced the launch of his multimillion-dollar “Climate Gender Equity Fund” to address purported inequalities women face in climate finance at the United Nations COP 27 climate conference in Egypt on Friday.
The Climate Gender Equity Fund will “leverage private sector contributions to help provide women climate leaders with technical skills, networks, and capital to develop and scale climate solutions,” according to a White House statement.
The Biden White House just announced the launch of a "Climate Gender Equity Fund" to "help provide women climate leaders with technical skills, networks, and capital to develop and scale climate solutions."
It's being funded by USAID and Amazon. pic.twitter.com/3WGnwzMuum
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 11, 2022
The program will have initial seed funding of $6 million, with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) matching e-commerce giant Amazon’s $3 million investment.
Amazon said the program will have a “global focus” and “help women access the networks and technical skills they need to accelerate the development of their climate change technologies.”
Amazon worldwide sustainability vice president Kara Hurst said:
As an important step in solving climate change, we must address the gender inequalities that persist in climate finance, and ensure female entrepreneurs have an equal seat at the table and access to the funding, networks, and technical support they need to scale climate solutions. We’re proud to collaborate with USAID and the Biden administration to help scale women-led climate solutions globally.
Amazon added that “female-founded companies typically receive a fraction of total venture capital, and that percentage fell during the pandemic.” Amazon also announced it would allocate an additional $50 million from its Climate Pledge Fund to invest in women-founded and women-led climate tech companies.
Biden’s White House also launched, among other programs, the “Indigenous Peoples Finance Access Facility,” a $2 million program that will “enable the continued climate stewardship by Indigenous peoples and local communities improving their access to climate finance.”
The multimillion-dollar Climate Gender Equity Fund comes after Biden signed a $430 billion climate spending bill under the guise of fighting inflation.
Story cited here.
