According to CleanTehnica, XPRIZE and the Musk Foundation announced on Earth Day that 15 teams from nine countries were awarded one million dollars each as they qualified for the next stage of the competition organized by Elon Musk and XPRIZE.

The two organizations also stated that the final winners will be awarded 80 million dollars in 2025.

The winning teams that reached the current milestone come from countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Kenya and the United States.

Last year in November, XPRIZE announced 23 carbon removal student award winners.

Dr. Marcius Extavour, chief scientist and vice president of climate and environment at XPRIZE, said that "one year in, we already see the positive impact of the prize: hundreds of groups working on a wide range of promising carbon removal solutions. Not just ideas, but development and deployment plans, which is exactly what we need. The pace and depth of initiatives in carbon removal and other crucial climate solutions has never been greater, but we still need more — more and deeper emissions cuts, and more reliable, validated carbon removal solutions. That’s why we launched this prize in the first place.”

The winning teams have been organized in four different solution types, air, land, ocean and rocks.

Some of the teams that qualified for the next stage of the competition are Calcite from 8 Rivers Capital, NetZero, Planetary and Carbin Minerals from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.