AI Boom Breaks Big Tech's Climate Pledges: Amazon and Google Emissions Soar in 2025

Google's 2025 Emissions: Record High and Rising Fast

Google's greenhouse gas emissions rose 18% in 2025, reaching a record high of 14.47 million metric tons . Electricity demand alone jumped 37% — the largest single-year increase in the company's history . Total emissions are now 51% above 2019 levels, the year Google set its net-zero pledge, and power consumption has risen 3.5-fold compared to 2019 .

Water consumption also surged, rising 34% to 10.9 billion gallons, which Google explicitly linked to AI infrastructure expansion .

Google's net-zero goal is slipping. The company has committed to net-zero emissions by 2030, but every year since that pledge has brought higher emissions. Google's 2025 environmental report acknowledged that its net-zero target is "slipping" as AI expansion overwhelms efficiency gains and renewable energy procurement .

The Allianz Trade Study: Global Data Center Emissions 57% Higher Than Estimated

A landmark study by Allianz Trade, published in June 2026, found that global data centers emitted 286 million tonnes of CO₂ in 2025 — a figure that is 57% higher than previous estimates had suggested . The primary driver is the exploding electricity consumption of AI workloads .

AI accounts for 15–20% of data center electricity use today, a share that could rise to 40% by 2030, risking $154 billion in annual climate damages without a shift to cleaner energy, according to the report .

The Projected Trajectory

The outlook for data center emissions remains concerning across multiple authoritative forecasts:

• The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects data center electricity demand to more than double by 2030, reaching roughly 945 TWh .
• McKinsey projects that global data center electricity demand could triple by 2030 .
• Under a business-as-usual scenario with unchanged grid emission intensity, the broader ICT sector's CO₂ output could reach 830 million tonnes by 2030 — comparable to the entire aviation sector's current footprint .

How the Pledges Stack Up Against Reality

Both Amazon and Google have made ambitious climate commitments:

• Amazon: Co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, committing to net-zero carbon by 2040, a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement .
• Google: Committed to net-zero emissions by 2030 .

In both cases, the trend lines are moving in the opposite direction. Amazon's total emissions have grown 34% since its baseline, and Google's are 51% above theirs. The Allianz Trade study underscores that the AI boom is putting both Big Tech's individual pledges and the ICT sector's Paris-aligned decarbonization pathways severely off track .