Why Microsoft’s Carbon Removal Pullback Is Such a Big Deal

You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.

Robinson Meyer:

[0:59] Hello, it’s Wednesday, April 15, and there’s big news in the small but extremely important world of carbon removal. Last week, Microsoft informed some partners and suppliers that it’s pausing its carbon removal purchases. I first reported the news here at Heatmap on Friday. Bloomberg and Carbon Herald have confirmed the story as well. And it’s a huge deal for the carbon removal industry. That is, the set of companies trying to develop technologies that can reduce or eliminate heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Sometimes you’ll hear it get called CDR for carbon dioxide removal. And no matter what you call it, in recent years, Microsoft basically was the industry. Since 2020, it’s bought more than 70 million tons of carbon removal, which is 40 times more than any other organization or coalition has purchased. The CDR scientist Julio Friedmann told me that…