Google reports 13 percent increase in emissions due to AI

Google said its greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 13 percent in 2023, driven by artificial intelligence’s appetite for energy and limited renewable energy availability in Asia and parts of the U.S.

Google’s total emissions reached 14,314,800 metric tons, an increase of 48 percent from 2019 levels, which serve as the baseline for emissions reduction goals, according to the company’s 2024 Environmental Report released July 2:

• Range 1 Emissions generated directly by Google’s operations fell by 13 percent.
• Range 2related to energy purchases, increased by 37 percent.
• Range 3Including purchased goods, such as materials to build data centers and accounting for 75 percent of the total, rose 8 percent.

Google’s net-zero emissions goal calls for a 50 percent reduction across Scope 1, 2 and 3 by 2030. The company’s disclosure of the significant increase mirrors Microsoft’s revelation in mid-May, when it reported a 29.1 percent increase in emissions from 2020, the year it announced a “carbon negative” goal.

Both Google and Microsoft have said the rapid expansion of their data centers has made it harder to meet corporate climate goals.

A “Turning Point” for Artificial Intelligence

The amount of energy used by Google’s data centers in 2023 was more than 24 terawatt-hours — about 7 percent to 10 percent of the global electricity used by data centers, the company said. That was a 17 percent increase from 2022 and about the same as the increase from 2021 to 2022, Google Chief Security Officer Kate Brandt said. Much of the growth is due to artificial intelligence. In 2022, data centers accounted for about 1 percent to 1.3 percent of global electricity demand.

“As AI is so deeply integrated into our products, the distinction between what is an AI workload and what is not is becoming irrelevant,” she said.

Google is betting on AI in its cloud business and as the foundation for future search revenue. It’s also a big focus for its sustainability team, which has set a goal of using AI to help cities, individuals, and businesses reduce their carbon footprint by 1 gigaton by 2030. The company cites research estimating that AI could help mitigate 5-10 percent of global emissions by the end of the decade.

With this in mind, Google is prioritizing three strategies to manage the environmental impact of AI:

• Optimizing the model with software that reduces the resources and time required to “train” the AI ​​to make decisions.
• Efficient infrastructure, including next-generation computing hardware like Nvidia’s Blackwell technology, which the company says will train AI models using 75 percent less energy than previous versions. Water is also a big consideration: Google’s data centers used 6.1 billion gallons in 2023, up 17 percent from 2022.
• Emissions reductions through company renewable energy investments: Contracts signed for 25 terawatt-hours. Some of this capacity is provided directly, some in the form of credits. The next phase of investment will focus on adding clean energy in Asia and accelerating the availability of technologies such as enhanced geothermal through new corporate partnerships.

Reality check for ‘carbon-free energy’ strategy

In 2010, Google signed its first renewable electricity purchase agreement, launching a strategy that has gained popularity among large companies with ambitious emissions reduction goals.

“In 2012, we set a goal of 100 percent renewable energy, without a full roadmap for how to get there,” said Brandt, who celebrates her ninth anniversary at Google at the end of July. “That forced us to innovate, to partner, and to work hard. That’s what I see as the value of ambitious goals for companies. The reason you stick to them is because they allow you to align across the entire company.”

Google’s latest promise is to run “carbon-free power” on its networks 24/7 by 2030. In other words, it’s prioritizing adding clean energy to the electrical grids where its data centers are located. Last year, Google’s global average for carbon-free power was 64 percent. At least 10 of its data center regions, including Brazil, France, the U.K., and Switzerland, are running on more than 90 percent carbon-free power. Others are much lower: Singapore, for example, averages just 4 percent.

In 2023, Google signed contracts for 4 gigawatts of new power projects, more than in any previous year. That brings its total commitments over time to 14 gigawatts, Brandt said. On July 1, Google invested an undisclosed amount in BlackRock portfolio company New Green Power, which will add 1 gigawatt of solar power in Taiwan, where Google’s average carbon-free power is just 18 percent, by 2023. Google has committed to buying at least 300 megawatts of that pipeline.

Google’s data center energy team has developed creative models to add renewable energy resources, such as new tariffs being considered by NV Energy and Duke Energy. These could enable commercial customers to help utilities finance resources for enhanced geothermal, small-scale nuclear, and long-term energy storage that support corporate emissions reduction goals.

It’s innovations like this that fill Brandt with optimism.

“My message is that this is tough. This is a pivotal decade, and we need to stick with it,” she said. “We need to support each other, which looks like sharing best practices, partnering even more deeply, and working through these systemic challenges so that together we can unlock change.”