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Comment by pphysch | Hacker News Reader

> Amazon announced it’s on a path to run on 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of schedule.

A possible silver lining of market domination is the ability to tackle issues like climate change without falling behind competitors who aren't making those harder choices. Unless this is all PR and Amazon is actively burning down their namesake or something?

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Switch to renewables, then lobby for a carbon tax to crush competitors that haven't switched or can't afford the transition.

If this is the only way to fight climate crisis, so be it.

It could also be feel good PR to deflect attention on their supply chain: both the political and environmental concerns people might have it they looked too close.

As long as the market dominator decides that climate change is a problem it needs to solve

In some cases, Amazon uses e.g. subsidied wind energy for new data centers. However, this means the renewable energy is not going to neighboring homes, which are instead still using non-renewables.

Not an economist, but I believe as long as they are willing to pay a premium for carbon-neutral energy, it's a net good thing as it increases the viability of carbon-neutral projects.

I think Google is not just being renewable energy, but also building new solar/wind farms to "offset" their use so this is not the case.

Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

>Maybe Amazon is doing something similar?

Yep!

https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/sustainab...

Disclaimer: Amazon employee, not speaking on behalf of the company, just posting a link to something I am aware of.

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