Multinational tech company Microsoft has pledged to become "carbon negative" by 2030, removing more carbon from the environment than it emits.
Microsoft promises to be "carbon negative" by 2030 and be able to remove more carbon than it emits. This goes beyond the pledge of rival Amazon, which intends to go "carbon neutral" by 2040.
Chief executive officer (CEO) Satya Nadella said the company is aiming to remove "all of the carbon" from the environment that it has emitted since the company was founded in 1975. He wants to achieve this goal by 2050.
In a blog, Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote: "When it comes to carbon, neutrality is not enough. The carbon in our atmosphere has created a blanket of gas that traps heat and is changing the world's climate."
"If we don't curb emissions, and temperatures continue to climb, science tells us that the results will be catastrophic," Smith added.
The company has also announced its plan to set up a climate innovation fund worth $1 billion to develop carbon-tackling technologies.
Microsoft's announcement of its carbon negative goal was greatly welcomed by environmentalists, who commended the company for thinking about the bigger climate change picture and not just its own role.
Elizabeth Sturcken from the Environmental Defense Fund said: "It's a hat trick of sustainability leadership. But to really shift the needle on climate change, we need 1,000 other [companies] to follow-suit and turn rhetoric into action."
However, Greenpeace warned that the tech firm still needs to address its current relationship with oil and gas companies. Greenpeace senior campaigner Elizabeth Jardim said: "While there is a lot to celebrate in Microsoft's announcement, a gaping hole remains unaddressed: Microsoft's expanding efforts to help fossil fuel companies drill more oil and gas with machine-learning and other AI technologies."
Microsoft plans to achieve this goal by seeding new forests and expanding existing ones, soil carbon sequestration, direct air capture, and bio-energy with carbon capture.
