A Step on the Gas

The world's biggest tech companies are plowing millions into carbon dioxide removal in a bid to curb climate change, but is it enough?

- JEFF YOUNG

TECH GIANTS INCLUDING MICROSOFT, META, Alphabet and Salesforce are pouring more money than ever into climate solutions designed to pull carbon dioxide directly from the air.

The multimillion-dollar investments are the latest moves by high-tech leaders to boost the small but growing field of carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, as they seek to meet ambitious climate goals while consuming mind-boggling amounts of energy.

"We need carbon removal as an insurance policy," Salesforce's lead on carbon removal, Jamila Yamani, told Newsweek. Salesforce recently announced $25 million for the CDR investment company Frontier to make sure carbon removal technology will be ready when needed.

"It's going to require early investment today in order for us to have it available to use later," Yamani said.

Other recent announcements included nearly $49 million in CDR purchases by Frontier on behalf of tech companies, and a pledge by Microsoft to buy millions of carbon removal credits for reforestation―a deal that the company called the world's largest such transaction to date.

The funding announced will support tree-planting projects in Latin America and a carbon-capture addition to a biomass energy facility in Sweden, demonstrating the broad range of CDR approaches that tech companies are backing.

Previously, tech companies have invested in some carbon removal machinery that seemed like the stuff of science fiction just a short while ago but has now grown to commercial application.

The Swiss company Climeworks used millions of dollars from tech companies to take its carbon removal technology from a lab experiment 15 years ago to the world's largest direct-air carbon removal facility unveiled in May.