Pricing in

Compliance carbon pricing is broadly working, and revenues are rising. However, the voluntary market that companies relied on is in trouble. Microsoft staff began calling carbon-removal developers in early April with awkward news.

The world’s largest corporate buyer of credits used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was putting purchases on hold. Bloomberg confirmed the story on April 11. Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s senior director of energy and carbon removal, had said the previous year that nearly all of the firm’s contracted credits were due between 2030 and 2050. The April calls suggested that the shopping spree, at least for now, was over. Two days later Melanie Nakagawa, the chief sustainability officer, walked back the message: the programme had “not ended”. Microsoft accounted for 78.5 per cent of all disclosed durable carbon-removal contracts as of mid-April, on data from CDR.fyi. When the buyer underwriting most of an industry pauses, the industry notices. Paschal Donohoe, the World Bank’s managing director, chose this week to publish his organisation’s annual State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report. Revenues from carbon pricing had tripled in a decade, mobilising more than 107 billion US dollars for governments in 2025. The number of schemes worldwide reached 87, with India and Vietnam the year’s most significant additions. Around 29 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions were now covered by a direct price; that share would tip past a third if all the instruments under development reach the statute book. Donohoe was careful to talk about pricing as a tool for countries to “determine their own energy mix” rather than as a guaranteed lever for cutting emissions.

Key points

• The world’s largest corporate buyer of credits used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was putting purchases on hold.
• Bloomberg confirmed the story on April 11.
• Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s senior director of energy and carbon removal, had said the previous year that nearly all of the firm’s contracted credits were due between 2030 and 2050.
• The April calls suggested that the shopping spree, at least for now, was over.
• Two days later Melanie Nakagawa, the chief sustainability officer, walked back the message: the programme had “not ended”.