The leap in emissions is largely due to energy-guzzling data centers and supply chain emissions necessary to power artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The report estimated that in 2023, Google’s data centers alone account for up to 10% of global data center electricity consumption. Their data center electricity and water consumption both increased 17% between 2022 and 2023.
Google released 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide just last year, 13% higher than the year before.
Climate scientists have shown concerns as Big Tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft continue to invest billons of dollars into AI.
there are still going to be a lot of people who need power though. Cutting the US of AI isn’t going to magically remove coal plants from the grid, it’s going to do nothing actually. We need to be building new plants, period.
We need to be transitioning to zero carbon as fast as possible, period, and even that isn’t good enough. Moderating our energy consumption is vital. There is a cliff at the end of the road and business as usual means driving on down the road.
I am not saying that we need to turn off our lights and heating. I am saying that we first-worlders use a lot of power on frivolous things that we absolutely can live without.