Google's emissions surge 50% as AI data centers drive energy demand

Google's emissions are up 50%

Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by nearly 50% over the last five years. The company’s 2024 environmental report shows this rise is primarily due to the explosive energy demands of its data centers to power artificial intelligence.

The tech giant’s total emissions reached 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023. This represents a 13% year-over-year increase and a 48% jump since 2019, the baseline year before the pandemic.

AI is the driving force

The report directly links this surge to AI integration across its products. "As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging," the company stated. It cited "increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute" as a key factor.

Data centers require massive amounts of electricity for both computing and cooling. This growing energy footprint complicates Google’s flagship climate goal: to run its offices and data centers entirely on carbon-free energy, every hour of every day, by 2030.

The 2030 goal faces major hurdles

Google admits the path to its 2030 target is now "extremely ambitious." The report notes the "uncertainty" around the future environmental impact of AI. It also points to the broader challenge of global grid infrastructure not being ready for a large-scale transition to clean energy.

In the near term, the company expects its total emissions to continue rising before starting to decline. This is because it is building new data centers and investing in the technical infrastructure needed for its AI future.

• Total 2023 emissions: 14.3 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent
• Five-year increase since 2019: 48%
• Year-over-year increase (2022 to 2023): 13%
• Primary cause: Data center energy consumption for AI

A broader industry trend

Google is not alone in this dilemma. The entire tech sector is grappling with the massive energy requirements of generative AI. Microsoft’s emissions have also increased by nearly 30% since 2020 as it races to build AI infrastructure.

These trends highlight a central tension: the industry’s most hyped new technology is directly at odds with its public climate commitments. Building and running the hardware for AI models like Gemini and ChatGPT is incredibly energy-intensive.

Google's clean energy investments

Despite the rising emissions, Google emphasized its investments in clean energy. The company says it matched 64% of the electricity consumption at its data centers and offices with carbon-free energy on an hourly basis in 2023.

It also announced new power purchase agreements for clean energy and partnerships aimed at enhancing global grids. However, these efforts are currently being outpaced by the sheer growth in energy demand from its AI operations.