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Google's emissions surge 50 percent since 2019

Google's greenhouse gas emissions have climbed by nearly 50 percent over the past five years. The company's 2024 environmental report reveals the increase is driven by the immense energy demands of artificial intelligence.

Google's total emissions reached 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023. This marks a 13 percent year-over-year increase and a 48 percent jump since 2019.

AI and data centers drive the increase

The report directly links the rising emissions to the expansion of its technical infrastructure. "This result is primarily due to increases in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions," the company stated.

Data centers are notoriously energy-intensive, and the computational power required for AI training and inference is significantly higher than for traditional computing. Google is investing heavily in this infrastructure to compete in the generative AI race.

Google's net-zero goal faces a major challenge

This trend presents a serious obstacle to Google's climate pledge. The company has committed to reaching net-zero emissions across its operations and value chain by 2030.

"The future environmental impact of AI is complex and difficult to predict," Google acknowledged in its report. It admits that scaling up AI and the clean energy solutions needed to power it could lead to "increasing emissions in the near term."

Tech giants grapple with AI's energy cost

Google is not alone in facing this dilemma. Microsoft's emissions have also risen by roughly 30 percent since 2020, largely for similar reasons. Both companies are major investors in OpenAI.

The industry is betting that AI can eventually help solve climate challenges. However, the immediate effect is a substantial increase in electricity use and carbon footprint.

Key factors contributing to the emissions surge include:

• Increased data center energy consumption
• Higher supply chain emissions for building new infrastructure
• The carbon intensity of local power grids where data centers are located

The push for clean energy solutions

Google says it is working to mitigate the impact. The company argues it can simultaneously scale up AI and work toward its 2030 goal by:

• Investing in cleaner energy sources and carbon removal technologies
• Improving the energy efficiency of its AI models, hardware, and data centers
• Partnering with utilities and governments to promote grid decarbonization

Whether these efforts can outpace the exploding demand from AI remains the critical, unanswered question for Google and the entire tech sector.