Microsoft Staff Tell Some Carbon Capture Companies It’s Pausing Deals

From carbon capture to tree-planting initiatives, carbon removal projects have suffered their fair share of setbacks over the past few years. In the latest installment, Microsoft staff tell some project developers the tech giant is pausing its carbon credits program.

Today’s newsletter looks at what it means to halt the world’s biggest program for financing the extraction of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Meanwhile in the Philippines, a corruption scandal tied to flood infrastructure has led to fund managers calling for stricter reporting.

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Staff at Microsoft have told some developers of carbon removal credits that the company is pausing what is currently the world’s biggest program for financing the extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Employees at the software giant have called a number of carbon project developers in recent days to say Microsoft is putting purchases on hold, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified disclosing confidential information. In one instance, Microsoft employees said the decision was motivated by financial considerations, one of the people said.

Microsoft is by far the largest investor in removal credits, having set an ambitious goal to be carbon negative by 2030. The company is engaged in deals across a variety of technologies, with BloombergNEF estimating that its purchases in 2025 accounted for 96% of the entire market.

Top buyers of carbon removals in 2025

Emails to Microsoft outside regular office hours weren’t immediately answered. Heatmap reported earlier that Microsoft is shelving future purchases of carbon removals, while noting that a spokesperson for the company denied it was indefinitely pausing all of its purchases.

Microsoft may restart the program in the future, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Four developers with Microsoft contracts separately told Bloomberg News they hadn’t been informed by the tech giant about any pause to the company’s carbon removal program.

While Microsoft has expanded its carbon removals program, the company’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly on the back of its investment in data centers needed to power artificial intelligence.

Pulling vast quantities of carbon from the atmosphere will be essential if the planet is to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic levels of overheating. At the same time, global capacity for removing carbon from the atmosphere is currently just a fraction of what scientists say is needed.