Jeff Bezos Funding Methane Vaccine for Cows – JP

Jeff Bezos is putting forward $9.4 million to develop a vaccine intended to reduce methane emissions from cows.

The development, announced earlier this year, comes from the Bezos Earth Fund. The fund was “created by a commitment of $10 billion from Jeff Bezos in 2020 to be disbursed as grants to address climate and nature within the current decade,” its website says.

According to an August press release, the project, a collaboration between the Pirbright Institute and the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), seems to use “state-of the-art biotechnology to figure out the mechanism by which a vaccine could cut livestock methane emissions by more than 30%, addressing a major contributor to climate change.”

“This groundbreaking research explores whether a moonshot to cut livestock methane emissions is achievable,” said Bezos Earth Fund President and CEO Dr. Andrew Steer. “Vaccines have proven to be incredibly effective in global health, and if we can apply this approach to cattle, the potential for reducing emissions is immense. The Bezos Earth Fund is committed to high-risk, high-reward projects like this, which have the power to transform our efforts against climate change.”

An investment fund founded by Bill Gates has also contributed millions of dollars to a vaccine developer looking to create a livestock vaccine. ArkeaBio, a Boston-based vaccine developer, received $12 million from Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV).

Gates recently said that there is a drug that “looks very promising” to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. Another option to combat supposed climate change involves sticking a “sort of metal thing into the skin of the cow and it actually burns the methane.”