Microsoft makes game-changing $760 million investment in pursuit of ambitious goal: 'It just seemed like a no-brainer'

Microsoft is continuing its push to achieve carbon negative, announcing that it is buying removal credits for 3.7 million metric tons of carbon.

The carbon removal agreement will stretch over 12 years during its project to capture and store carbon emissions from a pulp and paper mill on the Gulf Coast. The project is in partnership with carbon dioxide removal developer CO280, and Microsoft cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report on the need for carbon removal in a statement to The Cool Down.

"It just seemed like a no-brainer that everyone had missed," CO280 co-founder and CEO Jonathan Rhone told TechCrunch. CO280 sells its carbon removal credits at around $200 per metric ton, making the deal worth $760 million.

In Microsoft's 2024 environmental sustainability report, the company disclosed that its pollution continued to rise. "In 2023, we saw [direct operational emissions] decrease by 6.3% from our 2020 baseline. This area remains on track to meet our goals," the report reads. "But our indirect emissions increased by 30.9%."

Altogether, Microsoft reported that its "emissions are up 29.1% from the 2020 baseline." It said this is the result of the construction of more data centers and its building materials and hardware components.

Carbon removal credits allow companies to offset their pollution. Carbon capture prevents carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. It involves capturing CO2 from industrial processes or power plants, transporting it, and storing it, typically deep underground.

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This method is a patchwork option for reducing emissions and mitigating damages, and there are drawbacks. The high cost, safety risks such as leaks and human health hazards from high CO2 concentrations, and the energy penalty associated with the carbon capture process limit the method's long-term viability.

Additionally, carbon capture fails to address the overarching concern of our reliance on fossil fuels. Legislation to become carbon neutral or negative typically focuses on seeking renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency, and reducing transportation pollution.

As noted by the Carbon Removal Alliance, the carbon removal industry is equipped to remove around 100 million metric tons of carbon emissions every year. This can account for up to 130,000 additional jobs across the United States.

In 2020, Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith announced that the company would become carbon negative by 2030. "The scientific consensus is clear. The world confronts an urgent carbon problem," Smith wrote. "The carbon in our atmosphere has created a blanket of gas that traps heat and is changing the world's climate."

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According to Smith, the rise in carbon pollution had become too significant to ignore. "Already, the planet's temperature has risen by 1 degree centigrade," Smith added. "If we don't curb emissions, and temperatures continue to climb, science tells us that the results will be catastrophic."

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Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct Microsoft's goals from carbon neutral to carbon negative, meaning it intends to be responsible for more net carbon removal from the atmosphere than what it emits.