“There’s no fossil fuel CEO who sits there and says, ‘You know, I’m just gonna deny climate change,'” Nadella said, according to the employees’ transcript of his remarks. “If anything, they’re all saying, ‘Let us have, in fact, the regulation, the pricing mechanisms that get us to this future.'” Microsoft said in an emailed statement Tuesday that it is “focused on helping companies of all kinds become more efficient, including energy companies.” It declined to comment on Nadella’s remarks, which were part of a regularly scheduled “all-hands” gathering in which the CEO welcomes questions on a range of topics. Less than a week after that exchange and days before a planned worldwide protest over climate change, Microsoft announced yet another major deal for its Azure cloud computing platform — this time with Chevron and oilfield services giant Schlumberger. The timing of the announcement ahead of the climate protest and United Nations climate action meetings angered some environmentally-minded Microsoft workers and caught the attention of outsiders. “It is unconscionable that amid global climate protests, tech giants like Microsoft are announcing major partnerships with Big Oil,” said Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a tweet that coincided with the September 20 global climate strike. “We must hold them accountable, demand they break ties with the fossil fuel industry, and move rapidly to sustainable energy.” Echoing that message was a small group of Microsoft employees who carried cardboard signs to a lunchtime protest that day outside of Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. “No Azure For Oil,” said one of the signs.
Big technology companies are still fostering close relationships with oil and gas firms despite public pledges to reduce carbon emissions. Microsoft, Amazon and other giants in the sector are competing to sign deals with majors like ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and others, which spend around $20bn days on cloud services, accounting for 10% of the cloud market. As such, these activities are at odds with the public environmental commitments of many technology companies.