AI’s Biggest Climate Problem May Not Be Data Centers
Researchers say AI-driven gains in oil and gas could add 0.47 to 1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
- A new study published last week in Climate Action reports that AI-driven productivity gains could increase global emissions by 0.47 to 1.8 gigatonnes annually if adoption outpaces renewable energy applications.
- Former Microsoft sustainability workers Holly Alpine and Will Alpine co-founded the Enabled Emissions Campaign to highlight how AI tools make fossil fuel production more profitable and economically viable, extending the industry's dominance.
- These enabled emissions could represent 1.2% to 4.8% of global energy-related emissions recorded in 2024, while Rystad Energy estimated digitalization will create nearly $500 billion in cumulative value for fossil fuel companies by 2030.
- Microsoft is partnering with Chevron on a Texas gas plant to power data centers, a deal Chevron president Jeff Gustavson noted would also support the oil giant's internal AI capacities.
- Public Citizen senior policy counsel Clara Vondrich criticized these partnerships, stating "Big Tech is Big Oil's number one accomplice" by selling proprietary tools to accelerate fossil fuel extraction.
15 Articles
15 Articles
AI's Impact on the Environment Is Absolutely Horrifying, New Paper Finds
The impact artificial intelligence has had on the environment has been nothing short of devastating. The data centers powering the boom have been spewing out a staggering amount of pollution by relying on fossil fuel-powered generators. And given the industry’s unrelenting appetite for more infrastructure supporting ever-more-resource-intensive AI models, the trend is only going to get worse from here. It’s reached the point that AI is giving th…
AI’s contribution to pollution
Using AI to achieve renewable goals like stabilising grid connections and improving water storage is becoming more common. But its contribution towards fossil fuel pollution outweighs the results of these practices. A study has become the first to model AI’s climate impact across the whole power sector. Researchers tested the potential for AI to boost clean power generation along with projecting how it can help produce coal, oil and gas. In 64 s…
Why AI may boost carbon emissions instead of cutting them
AI data centers get a bad rap, not least because of concerns that they drive climate change by consuming massive amounts of electricity. But one potentially larger impact of AI on global carbon emissions may be that it's helping the fossil fuel industry become more productive. That's the main finding of a paper published in the journal npj Climate Action that looked at how boosting productivity across both clean and dirty energy sources affects …
AI’s biggest climate problem may not be data centers
AI’s carbon footprint is even worse than it seems. It’s not just that new data centers are leading to new fossil-fueled power plants—like an Amazon-backed gas plant in Texas that could be the largest single source of CO2 pollution in the U.S. AI also is making the fossil fuel industry more productive, and a new study finds that those productivity gains could generate as much as 13 times more emissions than data centers do today. The study, publi…
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