ALBAWABA - According to the company's 2024 environmental report, which was released on Tuesday, Google's emissions increased by about 50 percent in comparison to 2019, representing a significant blow for the tech giant, considering its objective of reaching net-zero emissions by the year 2030.
The ambitious strategy to combat climate change that Google devised three years ago was to achieve "net zero" emissions by the year 2030, as reported by Al Jazeera, which implied that the company aims to release no additional gases that contribute to global warming into the atmosphere compared to how much it eliminates.
Google's emissions rose 13 percent in 2023, compared to the year earlier, defying predictions, skyrocketing 48% since 2019. The large surge in the previous year is attributed to growing demand for artificial intelligence applications, which placed strain on data centers and led to enormous power usage, noting that total data center electricity consumption spiked by 17 percent in 2023.
There have recently been plenty of cautions issued about the environmental effect of artificial intelligence technology since AI-powered services need a much higher amount of processing power and, therefore, energy than the typical cloud applications; thus, halting Google’s plans for 2030, as BBC reports, with the company admitting that “as we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging.”
A typical data center is 1.8 times less energy efficient than Google's data centers, according to the report, with the company noting that it is still dedicated to minimizing the negative effects that artificial intelligence has on the environment by optimizing models, enhancing infrastructure efficiency, and reducing emissions.
