Many Big Tech Companies Produce More Carbon Emissions than What They Say In Reports

There has always been news about how there's excess carbon emissions from big tech companies. But now due to artificial intelligence, the carbon emissions have reached their all time high. Even though many companies tell the amount of carbon emission from their data centers, most of them do not tell the accurate amount. According to data, companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft have 7.62 times more carbon emissions than these companies tell the authorities.

The International Energy Agency says that many data centers were already taking 1 to 1.5% of the global electricity in 2022 but then ChatGPT got released and the need for electricity in data centers increased. AI takes more energy in data centers than other cloud applications. Goldman Sachs reports that an AI query takes 10 times more energy than a Google query and the need for power in data centers will grow 160% by 2030. Data centers are expected to emit 2.5 bn metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2030.

All big 5 tech companies have announced to be carbon neutral. Amazon did so recently by saying that it became carbon neutral 7 years prior to when it was expected. Amazon has implemented a gross carbon emission cut of 3%. But it is all due to creative accounting because Amazon is still expanding its fossil fuel use in data centers or in its diesel trucks.

Most companies use renewable energy certificates or Recs to show that they are using renewable energy sources but most of the time, they do not consume the energy or only use it on one site of production. Recs show what are the market based emissions but when Recs are offsite, we get location based emissions. This is actual emission generated in a specific area. The location based emissions of big five tech companies is concerning. If we take the stats of 2022 and put all the companies as one country, it will be the 23rd highest emitter in the world.

Google and Microsoft say that they are working to achieve the goal of making all their data centers on renewable energy sources and to match market based emissions and location based emissions. Google has already stopped using its Rec certificate and will totally emit their non-location specific Recs by 2030. GHG Protocol says that no company should hide their carbon emissions under any circumstances.

The carbon emissions that come from in-house data centers are called Scope 2 which is concerned with mainly electricity. Most data centers, except Amazon, also make up for the majority of Scope 2. Amazon has most carbon emissions from warehouses and e-commerce logistics. 100% of Meta’s centers are responsible for Scope 2 emissions with 97.4% location based emissions. The second biggest Scope 2 and location based emissions are from Microsoft. Meta’s carbon emissions are 19,000 times higher than 2022 while Microsoft’s emissions are 22 times higher than 2022 now.

Many big tech companies also rent third-party data centers which represent 37% of the worldwide data center capacity. All the emissions from third-party data centers fall under scope 3 emissions which include emissions from in-house data center constructions and electricity related emissions. Google and Microsoft have both blamed AI for their emissions while Apple is planning to work hard to reduce its carbon emissions as much as possible.

Image: DIW-AIgen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World