Google is pumping out more greenhouse gas than ever before with its CO2 emissions surging by 48% in the past five years, writes Colin Fernandez.
The increased output stands in stark contrast to the tech giant’s stated intention to produce net-zero emissions by the year 2030.
Its latest environmental report shows its greenhouse gas emissions were 13% higher in 2023 than 2022 – producing the equivalent of 14.3m tonnes of CO2.
That is a similar amount of CO2 as would be generated in a year by around 29 gas-fired power stations. The main reason was increased energy use from data centre consumption and its supply chain, the report said.
Artificial intelligence, which uses vast amounts of computing power, and in turn electricity, is pushing up the firm’s energy use and will make cutting emissions ‘challenging’, the company said.
The increase in emissions came even though Google has been increasing its use of …