Here's the link to the report entitled, "Data Crunch" from the Center for Biological Diversity. And here's an excerpt from the Center's press release informing us about the report:
A fossil-fueled surge in U.S. data center growth to serve the artificial intelligence boom threatens to sabotage the country’s already faltering climate goals, according to Data Crunch, a report released today by the Center for Biological Diversity.
A massive expansion of data centers, set to be powered primarily by fracked gas, could account for 10% of the economy-wide emissions and 44% of the power sector emissions allowable to meet the U.S. 2035 climate target, known as the nationally determined contribution, or NDC. Data centers are projected to account for more than 12% of U.S. electricity consumption by 2030.
To meet the NDC — set by President Biden and still in effect under Paris Agreement’s terms — all other electricity-consuming sectors would need to increase their carbon-emissions cuts by 60% to account for data centers’ massive fossil-fueled pollution.
The report comes ahead of next month’s COP30 climate talks in Brazil as countries’ plans to address climate change are falling far short of what’s needed. The Trump administration is attacking climate progress and pushing for a fast-tracked AI data center boom fed by gas and coal.
“Trump is determined to feed the voracious AI vortex with more dirty fossil fuels that harm the whole world,” said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center and co-author of the report. “This report shows how the U.S. is about to set off an explosion of dirty data center emissions, entrenching more fossil fuels when we need their rapid phaseout. We need meaningful guardrails at every level to ward off this huge threat to our air, water and climate — and guard against energy price spikes for consumers.”
The report spotlights the U.S. role as the biggest AI climate polluter, with the planet’s highest concentration of data centers.
If the projected AI surge was instead powered fully by renewables, it would account for only 4% of the power sector emissions and a negligible amount of the economy-wide emissions allowable to meet the United States’ 2035 climate target.
Powering data center development with gas and coal risks entrenching dirty energy and its attendant harms, from air pollution to heatwaves and superstorms. It retreats from the 2023 Dubai climate summit agreement to transition away from fossil fuels and is completely incompatible with the 2035 U.S. climate goal.
The solid black line (—) depicts historical U.S. power sector emissions from 2015 to 2024 as sourced from U.S. EPA; the blue dotted line shows an idealized trajectory from 2024 to reaching power sector emissions in 2035 that align with the 2035 NDC; the red dotted line shows a linear trajectory from power sector emissions in 2024 to those in 2035 if data center buildout proceeds in accordance with the Lift-Off scenario and without action to reduce emissions by other electricity-consuming entities; the black dotted line shows a linear trajectory from power sector emissions in 2024 to those in 2035 if projected data center buildout is fueled fully by renewables and without action to reduce emissions by other energy-consuming entities; the blue wedge represents emissions reductions necessary to achieve the 2035 NDC by other electricity-consuming entities ifdata center buildout proceeds using renewables; the red wedge represents the additional reductions that would be necessary by other electricity-consuming entities to achieve the 2035 NDC if data center buildout proceeds with the fossil fuel-heavy energy mix described by IEA.
