Amazon, Apple, and Disney execs secretly back anti-climate reform lobbies

A new investigation from The Guardian in conjunction with analysis provided by the watchdog group, Accountable.US, links many of the country’s most powerful execs to lobbying efforts against the Biden administration’s climate change reform bill, despite their brands’ supposed commitment to combatting ecological crises. Companies including Amazon, Apple, Disney, and Microsoft all proudly tout various green goals, but their decision-makers’ membership in numerous anti-climate reform groups show their efforts to be clandestinely hypocritical at best, and actively harmful at worst.

“Major corporations love to tell us how committed they are to addressing the climate crisis and building a sustainable future, but behind closed doors, they are funding the very industry trade groups that are fighting tooth and nail to stop the biggest climate change bill ever,” president of Accountable.US, Kyle Herrig, said in a statement. Boasting supporters like the CEOs of Apple, Alphabet Inc., and Amazon, groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, and the Rate Coalition are funneling millions into watering down — or even preventing — congressional climate reform efforts.

No one is denying it — One of the most unsavory aspects of the new report appears to be the response from many of these businesses to the revelations. Of the many contacted by The Guardian, not a single one of them would “rebuke the stance of the lobby groups they are part of and none said they would review their links to these groups.”

Do as they say, not as they do — Although companies like Amazon and Microsoft have recently pledged to become carbon neutral within the next few decades (already a commitment that’s too little, too late), it should surprise absolutely no one to see concrete data linking their most powerful players to these lobbying groups. It is by these corporations’ very nature to constantly operate with the largest possible profit margins in mind after taking public scrutiny and opinion into consideration.

It’s good to see such major companies hypothetically pledging to work against eco-collapse, but much of it will always be canceled out by clandestine decisions like these lobbying group memberships.