US bank JPMorgan Chase to spend $200 mln on carbon dioxide removals

US bank JPMorgan Chase & Co will spend over $200 million on carbon dioxide removal credits to take away and store 800,000 tons of emissions as part of its sustainability efforts, it said on Tuesday.

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Even with pledges of huge reductions in emissions, many scientists believe extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) by using nature, or technology, will be essential to meet global goals set under the Paris climate agreement to curb climate change.

“These agreements reflect our ambition to support scale, innovation and evolution in these technologies. Alongside reducing emissions, the world needs significant investment in durable carbon removal solutions with gigaton-scale potential,” Ashley Bacon, chief risk officer, JPMorgan Chase said in a statement.

The bank has signed purchase agreements with several carbon removal projects, including a nine-year deal with Switzerland’s Climeworks, for 25,000 tons of carbon removals from its direct air capture (DAC) projects, which suck CO2 from the air and permanently store it.

It has also signed a deal with Charm Industrials to remove and store 28,500 tons over five years using its bio-oil technique.

Charm’s projects inject a carbon-rich liquid made from excess, inedible plant materials deep underground so the carbon absorbed as the plants grew is permanently stored and not released back into the atmosphere.

Due to their early stage and complexity, carbon removal credits are much more expensive than traditional offsets which pay for emissions cuts elsewhere to compensate for emissions companies have not cut themselves.

JPMorgan said the deals are expected to enable the company to match every ton of operational emissions it is unable to cut itself with removal credits by 2030.

“We’re first reducing emissions to minimize our environmental impact and then addressing what we can’t yet abate,” Brian DiMarino, JPMorgan Chase head of operational sustainability, said.

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