- Climeworks is thrilled that its carbon dioxide removal solution has been selected as part of Microsoft’s carbon removal portfolio to help reach negative emissions by 2030 and remove the company’s historic emissions by 2050.
- It is not enough to only reduce our emissions – if we want to restore a healthy balance of CO2 in the atmosphere, we must achieve negative emissions. Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal enables companies, organizations and individuals to remove past, present and future CO₂ emissions permanently from the air.
- This commitment is an important milestone in the fight against climate change, Climeworks hopes it will inspire many other established businesses and institutions to follow suit and remove past, present and future emissions from the air to achieve negative emissions.
- In addition, Microsoft will provide funding through its Climate Innovation Fund for Climeworks’ first-of-a-kind commercial-scale, fully renewable carbon capture and mineralization plant in Iceland.
Quote Climeworks
“Being part of Microsoft’s CO2 removal portfolio is a game-changer. Not only does Microsoft’s approach remove their own emissions, but they are also inspiring other businesses to invest in science-based and scalable solutions that have the potential to make a significant difference in the fight against climate change — like Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal.”
Christoph Gebald, co-CEO and co-founder of Climeworks
Quote Microsoft
“Climeworks’ direct air capture technology will serve as a key component of our carbon removal efforts. Their application set a high bar for technical rigor – especially the permanence of their solution, and we are looking forward to helping further scale their work with this purchase.”
Elizabeth Willmott, Carbon Program Manager at Microsoft
Project key details:
In addition to emissions reduction efforts, which prevent new CO2 from entering the atmosphere, climate scientists agree that removing historic and unavoidable emissions from air is crucial to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Businesses play a key role in the mitigation of global warming and are starting to address their current, past and unavoidable carbon emissions. Microsoft’s commitments are a core example of this: negative emissions by 2030, removal of all historic emissions by 2050. To achieve these goals, Microsoft selected a portfolio of promising negative emissions technologies available today to remove their emissions on top of reducing their emissions.
Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal has been selected in Microsoft’s carbon removal portfolio, after successfully passing an extensive application process. The selection of Climeworks carbon dioxide removal is a recognition of its strong scientific backbone resulting in an effective, safe and permanent storage solution. CO2 is captured from air in Hellisheiði, Iceland, with Climeworks’ direct air capture technology. Climeworks’ partner Carbfix then mixes the CO2 with water, pumps it underground and through the process of rapid underground mineralization the CO2 is stored safely and permanently.
This negative emission plan by Microsoft marks an important milestone on the road to addressing climate change and sends a strong signal to other established companies. It inspires those who want to help combat climate change and leverage a science-backed, fully measurable and permanent solution. Thanks to Climeworks’ carbon dioxide removal, businesses can remove their emissions while also helping to scale up a much-needed climate technology.
About the selection process:
Microsoft formed its carbon removal portfolio by assessing negative emission technology attributes pertaining to specific criteria of net negativity, as outlined in its white paper.
More about negative emissions:
It is not enough to only reduce our emissions – if we want to restore a healthy balance of CO2 in the atmosphere, we also must achieve negative emissions. This means humanity has to remove more CO2 from the air than it emits. Leading scientific studies indicate that by mid-century 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide will need to be removed from the air every year to keep global warming in the line of the limits of the Paris Agreement. There are two basic approaches: natural climate solutions and negative emissions technologies. Climate scenarios that limit global warming to 1.5°C rely on large-scale applications of carbon removal technologies. Climeworks’ direct air capture and storage is a scalable solution that can remove CO2 from the air in a permanent and measurable way.
About Climeworks
Climeworks empowers people to fight the effects of climate change by permanently removing carbon dioxide from the air.
One of two things happens to our air-captured carbon dioxide: either it is returned to earth, stored safely and permanently away for millions of years, or it is upcycled into climate-friendly products such as carbon-neutral fuels and materials. Our direct air capture technology runs exclusively on clean energy, and our modular CO2 collectors can be stacked to build machines of any size.
Founded by engineers Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, we strive to inspire 1 billion people to act now and remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Together we can build a climate-positive world. Join us!
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