Microsoft signs 10,000-tonne carbon removal agreement with DAC provider Climeworks.

Zurich-based Direct Air Capture (DAC) startup Climeworks has announced a 10-year carbon removal offtake agreement with tech giant Microsoft, marking one of the largest DAC agreements ever signed. Under the new agreement, Climeworks will permanently remove 10,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere on Microsoft’s behalf. DAC technology, listed by the IEA as a key carbon removal option in the transition to a net zero energy system, extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere for use as a raw material or permanently removed when combined with storage. According to the landmark IPCC climate change mitigation study released earlier this year, scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C include carbon dioxide removal methods scaling to billions of tonnes of removal annually over the coming decades, with DAC positioned to potentially account for a significant portion of the total.