Google agrees biggest carbon-removal deal yet, aims to scale new model
Credits, costs and expansion plans
The project will generate 1 million metric tons of methane-abatement credits by 2030 and 1 million tons of carbon-removal credits by 2040, generated and verified separately. The carbon-removal portion of the deal is 10 times larger than previous rock-weathering projects.
Rice paddies account for 10% to 12% of global methane emissions, according to a 2021 assessment by the U.N. Environment Programme. Accelerating action on methane is expected to be central to the COP31 climate talks in Turkey later this year.
Big Tech companies are under pressure to ramp up clean energy and carbon-removal investments to counter emissions from AI-driven data centres. Google is an investor in Terradot, after taking an equity stake in 2024.
The companies said the model could eventually be expanded across Brazil's 1.5 million hectares of rice fields and replicated in other rice-growing regions such as India and Vietnam.
