Microsoft has committed to be carbon negative by 2030 and then remove the equivalent of their historical emissions by 2050. This is extraordinary.
They have built a team and are doing the work, helping to stimulate what the IPCC says is the required growth in capacity across a diverse portfolio of carbon removal methods. In September they signed a long-term contract to purchase hundreds of kilotons of CO2 removal over a multi-year period from Heirloom – a Direct Air Capture startup based in California. I had the good fortune to attend the launch event and chat with Brian Marrs, the person leading the effort at Microsoft—he's the real deal.
At the other end of the continuum of CDR solutions, this recent commitment by Microsoft to drive massive reforestation in the Amazon will have significant co-benefits in addition to carbon removal, all of which is highly aligned with our Healthy Forests policy area.
Microsoft’s agreement is part of a project to grow more than 30 million trees in Para state in the Amazon basin. The forests will cover about 70,000 acres, or five times the size of Manhattan
Also, I know from working on state-level carbon removal policy that Microsoft's demonstrated progress towards making good on their commitment is influencing lawmakers to pursue similar objectives in the public sector. This feels like an opportunity for CCLers to engage and help drive this sort of innovative policy at all levels of government!
@Karl Danz Terrific news!. Let's hope Microsoft is just the first of many companies, states and nations willing to be held accountable for their “legacy GHG emissions” that are up there warming the planet, and to get their share removed from the atmosphere by 2050.
Net Zero by 2050 will NOT stabilize our climate.
A stable climate depends on removing the “legacy emissions” of the “forever gas” CO2. We've warmed the planet 1.2C since the start of the Industrial Revolution primarily because too much CO2 stays up there for too long. How long is too long? Paleo-climatologist David Archer opened his 2009 book, The Long Thaw, by pointing out that some of the CO2 we put up there today will still be warming the planet after today's nuclear waste is no longer radioactive.
A stable climate means we need to drive down atmospheric CO2 from today's 421 ppm CO2 (and tomorrow's 500 or 600 ppm CO2 by the time we reach NET-ZERO) to pre-industrial levels--350 ppm?…300 ppm?…280 ppm?…you pick it.
Kudo's to MIcrosoft for leading the way. Whether you're a company or a country…
- Accept your individual responsibility for removing your legacy CO2 emissions. It's called accountability.
- Calculate your share of legacy emissions and commit to a timeframe for removal.
- Invest in the research, development, and deployment of the Carbon-Dioxide Removal (CDR) technology, and commit to pay any CDR company at minimum fixed price for each ton of CO2 that they can verifiably remove by a date certain from the atmosphere, and permanently and safely store.
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