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Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased 48 percent over the past five years as it expands its data centers that support artificial intelligence systems, throwing into doubt Google’s commitment to reach “net zero” by 2030.
The Silicon Valley company’s pollution will total 14.3 million metric tons of carbon equivalent in 2023, up 48 percent from its 2019 baseline and up 13 percent from last year, Google reported Tuesday in its annual environmental report.
Google said the move emphasized “the challenge of reducing emissions” while investing in building out large language models and their associated applications and infrastructure. It acknowledged that “the future impact of AI on the environment” was “complex and difficult to predict.”
Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer, said the company remains committed to its 2030 target, but stressed the “extremely ambitious” nature of the goal.
“We still expect our emissions to continue to rise before declining again toward our target,” Brandt said.
She added that Google was working “really hard” to reduce its emissions, including by signing clean energy deals. There was also a “huge opportunity for climate solutions enabled by AI,” Brandt said.
While major tech giants like Google, Amazon and Microsoft have announced plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in AI, climate experts have raised concerns about the impact of these energy-intensive tools and systems on the environment.
In May, Microsoft admitted its emissions had risen by nearly a third since 2020, largely due to data center construction. But Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also argued last week that AI would help advance climate solutions.
Meanwhile, constraints on power generation and transmission are already posing challenges for companies seeking to develop the new technology. Analysts at Bernstein said in June that AI would “double the growth of U.S. electricity demand and total consumption could exceed current supply in the next two years.”
Google said in Tuesday’s report that energy-related emissions, which come primarily from data center electricity use, rose 37 percent year-over-year in 2023 and totaled a quarter of its total greenhouse gas emissions.
Emissions from Google’s supply chain — the largest portion, accounting for 75 percent of total emissions — also rose 8 percent. Google said they would “continue to rise in the near term” as it builds out the infrastructure needed to run AI systems.
Google has pledged to achieve net zero direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and to operate on carbon-free energy every hour of the day across every electricity grid it operates on.
However, the company warned in Tuesday’s report that the “termination” of some clean energy projects in 2023 had reduced the amount of renewable energy it had access to.
Meanwhile, the electricity consumption of the company’s data centers outpaced Google’s ability to bring more clean energy projects online in the US and Asia Pacific.
Google’s data center electricity consumption increased 17 percent in 2023, accounting for about 7-10 percent of global data center electricity consumption, the company estimated. Its data centers also consumed 17 percent more water in 2023 than the year before, Google said.
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