Google’s carbon emissions have mushroomed 48% over the past five years due to the growth of massive data centres that enable the cloud and artificial intelligence.
Total greenhouse gas emissions surged to 14.3 million tonnes last year, the Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) company revealed in its annual environmental report.
This was a 13% increase since the previous year, which the company said was "primarily driven by increased data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions".
Google acknowledged that this showed that it faces a “challenge of reducing emissions” while rolling out large-language model AI applications and other digital infrastructure.
The Silicon Valley giant said it used more clean energy in many areas where it operates, but said "there are still some hard-to-decarbonize regions like Asia-Pacific" where carbon-free energy is less readily available.
Many clean energy projects take time to result in GHG reductions after construction, it added.
Google has set a goal of reaching net-zero emissions across all of its operations and value chain by 2030 and said it is working on "water stewardship... circular economy and ... nature and biodiversity" efforts too.
On average, 64% of its grids used carbon-free energy.
Chief sustainability officer Kate Brandt said: “We do still expect our emissions to continue to rise before dropping towards our goal.”