Connect the Dots

To me, the story of AI and climate is two-fold. First, AI could directly aid the fossil fuel industry; machine learning has already been used to identify where oil and gas deposits might be found. At a time when we need to keep all remaining fossil fuels in the ground to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, this is a dangerous use of this technology. 

Second, the massive energy footprint that AI tools have incurred in the past few years has exposed the utter inadequacy of relying on voluntary individual – or even collective – corporate action without serious public policy to drive rapid systemic decarbonization.

Google provides a case in point: a recent Bloomberg News investigation found that thanks to the resources required to power AI, Google’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 were 48% higher than 2019. During that period, the company’s total energy consumption doubled as it struggled to keep up with data center expansion. As a result, Google is unable to buy enough clean energy to power it all; the company no longer claims to be carbon-neutral (a win it has touted since 2007), and has pushed back its goal of net-zero emissions to 2030. 

It’s a similar story for Microsoft, which has seen its emissions rise by 30% relative to 2020 primarily due to its AI activities. Microsoft still aims to be carbon-negative by 2030, and is betting on miracle solutions – such as the ever-elusive nuclear fusion – to make that possible. 

AI is driving up energy demand and creating a supply crunch for clean energy. If a company like Google – one of the wealthiest and best-resourced on the planet – can’t reach its climate goals, that is a clear sign that we need a different approach. Rather than get distracted by individual company goals, we must shift the focus to systemic changes to public policies that can drive corporate climate action.

Companies are currently trapped by their own goals and target dates. Take this hypothetical example of a company committed to 100% renewable energy: The company builds a new facility in a jurisdiction that has policies and plans (and is on target) for 100% renewable energy by 2030. However, the company already committed to use only renewable energy for all new facilities (and to backfill existing ones). So it negotiates power purchase agreements so it can claim the site is already 100% powered by renewable energy. This is a serious waste of time and energy – it gives the illusion of progress when the focus would be better placed on driving every grid on which they operate to shift to 100% clean energy quickly.

Like any technology, AI has good and bad uses, but companies simply cannot let its growing energy demands perpetuate fossil fuel production. This situation exposes how hard it is for individual companies, or even companies working together, to get to 100% clean energy through voluntary action. 

Fortunately, we can solve this with public policy. Through actions like permitting reform, clean energy standards, and tax incentives, public policy can set the market rules that everyone operates under, helping rapidly expand clean energy infrastructure, stop the expansion of gas fired power generation, and start to replace existing fossil-fueled generation with clean power. With that underlying policy support, private action within those rules can drive rapid change at scale.

We’ve already seen some tech companies advocate for key policies. Salesforce and Microsoft publicly supported the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), helping pass historic climate legislation in the U.S. in 2022. Similarly, in 2023 Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce, and others supported the landmark California Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253), ensuring greater accountability around climate disclosure.

There continue to be important opportunities for companies to use their influence at the local, state and federal level, including defending the IRA, supporting the EPA’s clean power plant rules, joining amicus briefs in support of the SEC’s national climate disclosure regulations, and supporting state and local policies focused on ratcheting up the standards for lower carbon buildings and transportation. It’s time for companies to speak up and help ensure that we have the market rules in place to drive a rapid and just transition to a zero-carbon economy.