Energy-guzzling AI has knocked Google and Microsoft off their net-zero paths

livemint.com:

There was news recently that Luiz Amaral, CEO of Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), has announced he will resign soon. This followed a staff revolt at the organization after it said it would let the companies it oversees use ‘carbon credits’ to offset pollution caused by their operations or supply chains. Initiatives like tree planting generate carbon credits, which, if bought, would allow companies to use these without cleaning up their act.

Verification by SBTi will enable companies to say their climate plans align with science and the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming. The market for carbon credits is already murky, and this fillip to its commercial use by companies was too much for SBTi’s staff to endure. For his part, Amaral said he was resigning for personal reasons and did not refer to the uproar that resulted from a reversal of the long-held position that SBTi had taken.

While manufacturing and burning fossil fuels usually get the rap for environmentally unfriendly practices, the real culprits may soon turn out to be Big Tech companies instead. While it is difficult to prise out exactly how much carbon dioxide they add to the atmosphere, according to Goldman Sachs, at least in the US, electricity use by data centres is projected to more than double, rising to 8% by 2030, up from just 3% in 2022. (bit.ly/3XLxUNz).

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says electricity consumption by cryptocurrencies, data centres and artificial intelligence (AI) could reach double their 2022 levels by as soon as 2026. (bit.ly/3RX5HiZ). There is a wide band around the IEA’s projections, however, and the report says that data centres, cryptocurrencies and AI together are likely adding “at least one Sweden or