Microsoft has announced that it wants to remove from the atmosphere the equivalent of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) it has emitted since its founding in 1975 by 2050. And first, by 2030, it wants its emissions balance. of net CO2 (i.e. the amount emitted minus that absorbed) is negative: i.e. it is committed to removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – the main gas responsible for the greenhouse effect and therefore climate change – than it produces, directly or indirectly , within the next ten years.
Microsoft's emissions plan was explained yesterday by company president Brad Smith along with CFO Amy Hood and CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft isn't the first major company to make such a promise: in September, Amazon announced it wanted to have a zero net emissions budget by 2040. Smith said such measures aren't enough when it comes to CO2 emissions.
To ensure a zero net emissions balance, a company can choose three different strategies: the most common is to offset its emissions by investing in projects that reduce carbon emissions elsewhere in the world. For example, by financing the construction of plants for the production of electricity from renewable sources in developing countries, or by convincing those who live in some of these countries to stop using wood stoves for cooking. Since 2012, Microsoft has fully compensated its direct emissions (those deriving from simple production without considering those caused by the production of electricity necessary to power it) with systems of this type.
Alternatively, again to achieve a zero net emissions balance, a company can only use renewable energy sources to power its production, but it is unlikely that such a measure – which Microsoft intends to adopt by 2025 – leads by itself to a zero net emissions balance. When counting emissions, for example, the means of transport used to transport the products to the points of sale must also be considered.
The third thing a company can do to zero its net emissions balance is actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. An easy way to do this is to grow new forests, but it is unlikely to be enough to zero out a large company's net emissions balance and even more to make it negative. For this reason, Microsoft's plan provides, in addition to planting trees to create new forests or grow existing ones, the development of technologies that make it possible to withdraw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and retain it, or systems to trap it in the soil, for example. enriching it with cultures of microbes that consume CO2.
This is a very ambitious plan, as the technologies available to do things like this are currently very expensive. Microsoft plans to spend a billion dollars over the next four years on research and development in this area. Such an investment by a company like Microsoft could make technologies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere cheaper. Many environmentalists are critical in the development of these technologies, however, since they would not encourage the reduction of the consumption of fossil fuels (from whose use CO2 emissions derive); it is no coincidence that the companies involved in the extraction of oil and natural gas finance research in this sector.
Environmental groups praised Microsoft's plan, but also recalled that the company still does business with large fossil fuel companies.
