By Benson Daniel
Google has agreed to its largest carbon-removal deal to date, backing a major project in Brazil designed to reduce methane emissions from rice farming while removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The project, being developed by climate technology company Terradot, covers more than 200,000 hectares in Rio Grande do Sul, one of Brazil’s major rice-producing regions. It uses enhanced rock weathering, a process that accelerates the natural ability of certain rocks to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The initiative is significant because it combines two climate strategies at a scale not previously attempted together. It aims to reduce methane emissions from rice paddies while also generating permanent carbon-removal credits.
Under the agreement, the project is expected to generate one million metric tonnes of methane-abatement credits by 2030 and another one million tonnes of carbon-removal credits by 2040. The carbon-removal component is about 10 times larger than previous enhanced rock-weathering projects backed by Google.
Rice cultivation is an important source of methane emissions globally. Methane traps substantially more heat than carbon dioxide over shorter periods, making reductions in agricultural methane emissions an increasingly important part of climate strategies.
At the same time, scientists have said reducing future emissions alone will not address the carbon dioxide already accumulated in the atmosphere. This has increased interest in technologies capable of removing carbon dioxide and storing it for long periods.
Google has described the Brazilian project as a potential model for future climate investments. The company became an investor in Terradot in 2024 as part of its efforts to expand carbon-removal technologies.
The model could eventually be extended across Brazil’s roughly 1.5 million hectares of rice fields and replicated in other major rice-producing countries, including India and Vietnam. Terradot plans to launch pilot projects in several countries this year, with commercial-scale expansion targeted for 2028.
Cost remains one of the biggest challenges facing the carbon-removal industry. Google and Terradot did not disclose the price of the latest carbon credits, but an earlier Terradot transaction involving 90,000 tonnes of carbon removal implied a cost of about $300 per tonne.
Many developers are targeting costs of around $100 per tonne to make carbon removal more commercially attractive at much larger scales. Terradot says the new Brazilian project will be cheaper than its previous projects, although it has not yet reached that benchmark.
The company also expects to reduce costs by changing how carbon removal is verified. Third-party verification can add more than $100 per tonne to enhanced rock-weathering projects, making verification costs a major obstacle to scaling the technology.
Google’s investment comes as technology companies face increasing pressure to address emissions associated with energy-intensive artificial intelligence data centres. The expansion of AI infrastructure has increased demand for electricity and intensified scrutiny of the environmental footprint of the technology sector.
The Brazilian project therefore represents both a climate initiative and an attempt to develop a commercially scalable model for carbon removal. Its success could help determine whether enhanced rock weathering can move from relatively small demonstration projects to a technology capable of operating across large agricultural regions.
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