YNTR: Will Microsoft’s $1 Billion Fund Kickstart Climate Investment?

You Need to Read the Bitterroot’s Will Microsoft’s $1 billion Fund Kickstart Climate Investing  by Jake Bullinger

As a part of Microsoft’s promise to get their emissions carbon neutral by 2030 and to remove all the carbon they ever emitted by 2050, they established a $1 Billion fund to invest in carbon-removal technologies. Will it work?

None has made a bigger step than Microsoft. Corporate pledges to reduce carbon emissions are nothing new, but the the Redmond, Washington-based company took a huge step forward last month when it pledged to become carbon-negative by 2030; come 2050, Microsoft says it will have removed as much carbon from the atmosphere as it has emitted since it was founded in 1975. To achieve that goal, and help others do the same, Microsoft established a $1 billion fund to invest in carbon-removal technologies.

“This has been an area that has received very little investment from the federal government, from state governments, or other national governments,” said Giana Amador, co-founder of Carbon180, a nonprofit promoting carbon removal technology. “So the size of investment that Microsoft is making actually is monumental. It’s probably the single largest investment in carbon removal solutions to date.”

It’s outstanding news, with significant repercussions for the nascent carbon removal industry.

“Solving our planet’s carbon issues will require technology that does not exist today,” Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post announcing the news. “That’s why a significant part of our endeavor involves putting Microsoft’s balance sheet to work to stimulate and accelerate the development of carbon removal technology.” 

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