{"id":1308,"date":"2024-07-04T00:03:28","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T00:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/04\/ai-why-googles-greenhouse-gas-emissions-have-surged-48-in-five-years\/"},"modified":"2024-07-04T00:03:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T00:03:28","slug":"ai-why-googles-greenhouse-gas-emissions-have-surged-48-in-five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/04\/ai-why-googles-greenhouse-gas-emissions-have-surged-48-in-five-years\/","title":{"rendered":"AI: Why Google\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions have surged 48% in five years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Google has admitted its greenhouse gas emissions have risen 48% over the past five years \u2013 largely because of artificial intelligence \u2013 scuppering its climate aims.<\/p>\n

AI systems require intense levels of computational power, and this has piled pressure on the tech giant\u2019s data centres around the world.<\/p>\n

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In its latest environmental report, Google went on to warn that reducing these emissions \u201cmay be challenging\u201d \u2013 especially as it builds new infrastructure.<\/p>\n

At the start of this year, the company announced it was investing \u00a3788m in the UK to establish a brand-new data centre in direct response to growing demand for AI<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But all of this comes as Google\u2019s self-set target of achieving net zero emissions by the end of the decade looms closer.<\/p>\n

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There have been growing concerns about the impact AI could have on climate change as adoption continues to grow.<\/p>\n

A recent study by the International Energy Agency predicted that the amount of electricity used by data centres could double between 2022 and 2026.<\/p>\n

Although Google\u2019s figures reveal most of its data centres in Europe and the Americas receive most of their energy from carbon-free sources, this isn\u2019t always the case.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because sites in the Middle East, Asia and Australia use a much lower proportion of energy from cleaner sources.<\/p>\n

Google<\/strong> claims it is \u201cactively working through\u201d the \u201csignificant challenges\u201d it faces \u2013 and some initiatives rolled out to lower emissions may not be beneficial immediately.<\/p>\n

The report added: \u201cWhile we advanced clean energy on many of the grids where we operate, there are still some hard-to-decarbonise regions like Asia-Pacific where CFE (carbon-free energy) isn\u2019t readily available.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, we often see longer lead times between initial investments and construction of clean energy projects and the resulting GHG reductions from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google went on to argue that AI could ultimately help the world reach key climate targets and even improve weather forecasts \u2013 a sentiment shared by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But Lisa Sachs from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, says Google must do more to collaborate with cleaner firms and invest in the electrical grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that we are far behind what we could already be doing now with the technology that we have, with the resources that we have, in terms of advancing the transition,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And while Ms Sachs praised Google for its honesty, she warned rigorous conversations were needed so \u201cit doesn\u2019t get much worse before it starts getting better\u201d.<\/p>\n

Amanda Smith \u2013 senior scientist at the climate non-profit Project Drawdown \u2013 added that AI should be used responsibly, and only when resulting energy consumption benefits society.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google has admitted its greenhouse gas emissions have risen 48% over the past five years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}