JPMorgan Chase announced today a series of deals aimed at removing and storing 800,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. With CDR purchases valued at over $200 million, the announcement marks one of the largest carbon removal purchases to date.

The agreements are also expected to enable JPMorgan to match its entire unabated direct operational emissions footprint by 2030, the firm said.

Brian DiMarino, Head of Operational Sustainability at JPMorgan Chase, said:

“Alongside facilitating sustainable finance and supporting clients in the energy transition, within our operations, we’re first reducing emissions to minimize our environmental impact and then addressing what we can’t yet abate. Our goal is to remove and durably store one ton of CO₂ for every ton of unabated direct operational emissions by 2030.”

According to the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change mitigation study released last year, scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C include carbon dioxide removal methods scaling to billions of tons of removal annually over the coming decades.

The report also noted, however, that while there are multiple existing solutions to capture and store CO2, most are early stage and currently limited in scale. In addition to addressing its own unabated emissions, JPMorgan said that the new agreements are also aimed at helping accelerate the development of CDR technologies and support scaling up carbon removal projects.

Daniel Pinto, President and Chief Operating Officer at JPMorgan Chase, said:

“Financing promising technologies needed to help accelerate the low-carbon transition requires capital and expertise. We’re working to drive scalable development of carbon removal and storage as commercial solutions and aim to send a strong market signal.”

The agreements announced Tuesday by JPMorgan include one of the largest ever purchases in the direct air capture (DAC) industry, from Climeworks, valued at over $20 million, and covering the removal of 25,000 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere over 9 years. 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.

JPMorgan also announced agreements with biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS) startups CO280 Solutions, for removals of up to 450,000 metric tons of CO2 over 15 years, and with Charm Industrial to remove and store approximately 28,500 metric tons over 5 years.

Additionally, JPMorgan also announced a $75 million commitment to Frontier, an advance market commitment coalition aimed at accelerating the development of carbon removal technologies with guarantees of future demand. The agreement includes purchases of $50 million for JPMorgan’s own operational emissions, as well as providing clients with access to as much as $25 million of CDR.

Heather Zichal, Global Head of Sustainability at JPMorgan Chase, said:

“These agreements will meaningfully contribute to moving carbon removal forward as a solution available to a wider range of buyers, including our clients.”

The post JPMorgan Announces one of Largest Ever Carbon Removal Purchases appeared first on ESG Today.