The World must act, The Science is clear say Google, but Armageddon will have to wait while they make money from AI
Saint Google’s climate piousness vanished the moment they had to give up something they cared about. The unwashed masses need to take cold showers, eat bugs and fly less often, but if those same people want artificial intelligence, who cares about the heat waves or the hurricanes? Do carbon emissions matter, or don’t they?
For three decades Saint Google strove to save the world from CO2 (and from skeptical opinions). Google were the first major company to become carbon neutral in 2007, the first to commit to operating 24/7 on carbon-free energy. They boast they’re helping 550 cities to reduce a gigaton of carbon emissions. Then opportunity knocked and set fire to those plans.
In 2020 they boldly set the goal of being 100% carbon-free by 2030, now three years later, their emissions are up 50% on what they were in 2019.
In September 2020, it was Google’s “Most Ambitious Decade” because the fires of climate change were already upon them:
Google announces it will run on carbon-free energy by 2030
“We have until 2030 to chart a sustainable cause for our planet or face the worst consequences of climate change,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a video released today. “We are already feeling those impacts today from historic wildfires in the US to devastating flooding in many parts of the world.”
Once Google’s data centers are powered completely by carbon-free energy, “this will mean every email you send through Gmail, every question you ask Google Search, every YouTube video you watch, and every route you take using Google Maps, is supplied by clean energy every hour of every day,” Pichai wrote in a blog post ….
So much for that — July 2024:
Google’s carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand
Google’s emissions surged nearly 50% compared to 2019, the company said Tuesday in its 2024 environmental report, marking a notable setback in its goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. The company attributed the emissions spike to an increase in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions driven by rapid advancements in and demand for artificial intelligence. The report noted that the company’s total data center electricity consumption grew 17% in 2023.
Way back in prehistoric times of 2020 the only mention of AI in these ambitious plans was “to optimize their electricity demand and forecasting.” which suggests AI was pretty useless, given that it didn’t tell them their 2024 electricity demand would be up 50%.
Most of Googles emissions are “Scope 3” which makes them just like the fossil fuel giants they despise
It’s not the oil and gas extraction that creates most of the emissions, it’s what Exxon’s customers do with the oil and gas that does. So it is with Google — it’s not creating the AI program that burns through the electricity, it’s the customers who keep asking it to make things like deep-fake porn movies. I mean, “Scope 3” is just plain silly — that any company should be accountable for what their customers do, but if you are going to apply silly rules, at least do it equally.
Fully 75% of Google’s carbon footprint are scope 3 emissions.
Our total Scope 3 emissions were approximately 10.8 million tCO2e in 2023, representing 75% of our total carbon footprint. Our Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions from sources in our value chain. The majority of these emissions come from the production of goods and services purchased for our operations, including the upstream manufacturing and assembly of servers and networking equipment used in our technical infrastructure.
So is the world at stake or not? If emissions will wash the coast away and melt the polar ice caps, why is it OK to demand people live in cold homes and give up their family holiday to Bali, but frivolously expand artificial intelligence use?
Do carbon emissions really matter or not?
“The science is clear: The world must act now if we’re going to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
We are committed to doing our part.” — Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, Sept 2020