Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have skyrocketed, according to the company’s latest environmental report, showing how much harder it will be for the company to meet its climate goals as it prioritizes AI.
Google has set a goal of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. But its total greenhouse gas emissions have actually increased by 48% since 2019. Last year alone, it produced 14.3 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution, a 13% increase from the previous year and roughly equivalent to the amount of CO2 that 38 gas-fired power plants could release each year.
According to Google’s environmental report, the increase in global warming pollution comes primarily from data center energy use and supply chain emissions. Data centers are notoriously energy-hungry, and those used to train AI are even more so. Electricity use, primarily from data centers, added nearly a million tons of pollution to the company’s carbon footprint in 2023 and was Google’s largest source of additional emissions last year.
“As we integrate more AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging”
“As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging due to the growing demand for energy from the increased computational intensity of AI and the emissions associated with expected increases in our investments in technical infrastructure,” the report said. Google’s data center electricity consumption alone increased by 17% in 2023, a “trend” that is expected to continue into the future, the report said. Google already estimates that its data centers accounted for up to 10% of global data center electricity consumption in 2023.
In an effort to minimize its environmental impact, Google says it is working to make its AI models, hardware and data centers more energy efficient. The company also aims to run 24 hours a day on carbon-free energy on every power grid it connects to by 2030.
Google isn’t alone in taking on AI and making corporate climate goals even more unattainable. Microsoft’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by about 30% in its 2023 fiscal year compared to 2020.
