Today, Google unveiled a fresh pledge to procure carbon removal credits totaling at least $35 million within the upcoming year. This initiative aligns with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) efforts to bolster the carbon removal sector by financing innovations and technologies. Randy Spock, Carbon Credits and Removals Lead at Google, shared details of this commitment in a recent announcement:
“This model of mutually reinforcing public-private support is an important tool to commercialize carbon removal solutions. As with many emerging technologies, governments and companies have a critical and complementary role to play in demonstrating promising carbon removal approaches and bringing them to a commercial scale.”
According to the groundbreaking 2022 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on climate change mitigation, scenarios aimed at limiting warming to 1.5°C necessitate the scaling up of carbon dioxide removal methods to remove billions of tons annually over the next few decades. While the report acknowledges the existence of several solutions for capturing and storing CO2, it highlights that most are still in early stages and currently operate at limited scales.
To aid in the industry’s expansion, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiated the Carbon Negative Shot in 2021, aimed at fostering innovation in CO2 removal pathways, including Direct Air Capture (DAC), soil carbon sequestration, ocean-based CO2 removal, and reforestation, among others. The goal is to enable carbon capture and storage at gigaton scales for less than $100 per net metric ton of CO2e by 2032. In September 2023, the DOE introduced the Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize, offering $35 million in funding to procure carbon removal credits and support commercial carbon dioxide removal companies.
In a bid to encourage other entities to invest, the DOE unveiled the Voluntary Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchasing Challenge today, urging organizations to publicly commit to larger and more ambitious purchases akin to the DOE’s $35M carbon removal purchase pilot. The initiative provides resources for buyers to make significant carbon removal purchases while aiding carbon removal credit suppliers in finding additional customers.
As part of this initiative, the DOE will establish a public leaderboard to recognize buyers and monitor voluntary carbon removal purchases. Google has become the inaugural participant in the challenge, matching the DOE’s $35 million commitment.
The DOE announced the new challenge in a recent post, stating:
“Working together, this public-private initiative has the potential to unlock game-changing capital for high-quality and affordable carbon dioxide removal in time to meet our climate goals.
“To that end, we’re thrilled to see Google announced today that it’s pledging to match the DOE’s $35M initiative to support carbon removal solutions. We plan to highlight as similar announcements going forward.”
