New York (AFP)

Microsoft promised Thursday that its carbon footprint would be negative by 2030, against a background of increased pressure on large companies to respond to the climate challenge.

This commitment should lead to the cancellation in 2050 of all the carbon emitted by Microsoft since its foundation in 1975, assured the IT giant.

"The scientific consensus is clear: the world is facing a carbon crisis today," said Microsoft boss Satya Nadella during a ceremony to present the initiative.

"If we don't reduce our emissions and temperatures continue to climb, science warns us that the results will be devastating," he said.

To carry out its project, the group of Redmond (Washington, west) plans to supply itself only with renewable energies in all its data centers, its buildings and its campuses by 2025, to set up a "carbon tax intern "in July 2020 or to participate in afforestation and reforestation operations.

- Funds -

The company also said it would invest $ 1 billion in a new "climate innovation fund" to improve carbon capture and removal technologies.

"We understand that this is only a fraction of what is required to resolve this problem," said Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood.

"We hope that by doing this, we will set an example for both governments and other businesses to invest with us and solve this problem," said Hood.

The fund will finance technologies under development as well as innovative ideas to fight climate change, she said.

These investments could notably be made in "at risk" developing markets and could consist of acquisitions, according to Microsoft, which also plans to work with its customers to reduce carbon emissions.

The company will publish annual reports on carbon emissions and encourage other companies to do the same.

Several big names in tech have already committed to reducing their CO2 emissions. In September, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos promised that his group would achieve carbon neutrality in 2040.

The British energy company Drax announced in December that it intends to become the first "carbon negative" company - namely that it plans to absorb more CO2 than it will emit - from 2030 .

On Wednesday, Pepsi announced its ambition to use 100% renewable electricity for its activities in the United States in 2020.

Many of these large companies are often criticized by environmental organizations for not doing enough in the face of the climate emergency, certain activists going as far as accusing them of doing "greenwashing" by launching this kind of initiatives.

- Growing concern -

One of the ideas put forward during the Microsoft presentation ceremony is to add the amount of carbon emissions to the product label in a similar way to what is done for the nutritional intake of food products.

"Shouldn't people around the world be able to know the carbon emissions of a product when they decide to buy it"? asked Microsoft chief legal officer Brad Smith.

"Imagine what this would create in terms of incentives for companies," he suggested.

Microsoft's announcement comes against a backdrop of growing concern about climate change. On Wednesday, the UN announced that the past decade (2010-2019) has been the warmest on record.

© 2020 AFP