Figure of the week 3.7 billion dollars for voluntary CO2 removal
Over 500 companies and private individuals worldwide have purchased certificates for CO2 removal. They paid almost four billion US dollars for this, as data from the online portal "CDR.fyi" shows.
08.03.2025, 07:30
SDA
The aim is to remove 13 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Companies and private individuals use it to offset emissions from air travel, for example. However, only five percent of orders have been delivered so far.
This is due to the fact that technologies for removing and storing CO2 are only available to a limited extent. There are currently 526 suppliers on the market. One of these is the Swiss company Climeworks, which extracts CO2 from the air and stores it in the ground.
The US technology group Microsoft has purchased the most certificates (8.2 million tons), followed by the Frontier Buyers conglomerate (760,000 tons) and Google (560,000 tons).
CO2 removal should not be confused with CO2 compensation. With offsetting, companies and private individuals can pay for climate protection projects, for example. These are considered controversial as the benefits are not directly measurable. Greenhouse gas removal, on the other hand, is considered more reliable.
