US Data Centre Emissions Surge as Tech Giants Retreat from Climate Targets
Natural gas supplied more than 40% of electricity powering US data centres in 2024, and coal accounted for 30% of global data centre power supply, according to the International Energy Agency — numbers that have widened the gap between the sector's stated sustainability ambitions and its actual emissions trajectory.3
The emissions record among the largest operators tells the same story. Google's total greenhouse gas output jumped nearly 50% compared with earlier baseline levels; Amazon's rose 33%, Microsoft's more than 23%, and Meta's more than 60%, according to corporate disclosures reviewed by Fortune in May 2026 (2026-05-19).3 Google, which six years ago expressed confidence it would power all operations from clean sources by 2030, now describes that target as a "moonshot." "Even if they haven't officially revised their goals, they are starting to acknowledge that, 'Yeah, we're maybe not on track,'" one analyst told Fortune.3
The immediate cause is AI. Generative AI workloads require sustained, dense compute — data centres running at near-continuous high load rather than the burst patterns that earlier infrastructure was designed around. An estimated 10-20% of US data centre energy currently goes to AI applications, and that share "will likely increase significantly" going forward, according to projections cited by Time.2
The electricity numbers reflect that demand shift. US data centres consumed roughly 4.6% of total US electricity in 2024, a share that could nearly triple by 2028 under government estimates.3 For context, data centres used an estimated 70 billion kilowatt-hours in 2014, equal to about 1.8% of US electricity consumption at the time, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report; the 2024 share is two-and-a-half times larger on a base that has itself grown.4 Data centres now account for more than 1% of global electricity use, the IEA said.2
A BloombergNEF analysis published in May 2026 (2026-05-19) concluded that AI-driven data centre expansion is expected to keep fossil fuels in use for longer — the new load is arriving faster than renewable capacity additions can absorb it.1 The IEA projects global electricity demand will grow at an annual average of 3.6% between 2026 and 2030, driven by data centres, electric vehicles, air conditioning, and industrial electrification.7 Meeting that growth through low-carbon sources would require grid investment to rise approximately 50% above the current $400 billion annual pace, the agency said.7
The transmission network is not ready. US regional grid operators requested from FERC an extension on a federal deadline to upgrade existing transmission infrastructure, creating bottlenecks that slow both renewable capacity additions and the connection of new data centre load.6 The pattern has analogues elsewhere: in Southeast Asia, Bain and Standard Chartered projected roughly 100 terawatt-hours of incremental power demand by 2030 from data centres, EVs and industrial clusters, but noted that slower grid development could delay the rollout.5
Big tech companies have framed their emissions divergence from stated targets as a grid-dependency problem rather than an operational failure — the argument being that their facilities run on the same mix as the regional grid, and that grid decarbonisation is what ultimately determines outcomes. The argument has become harder to sustain as the scale of new demand has made the sector itself a material driver of that grid mix. Some analysts predict US nationwide electricity use could rise as much as 20% in the next decade, with data centres a primary factor.3
NYMEX Henry Hub front-month gas was at $3.18 per MMBtu as of Monday morning (2026-07-06), little changed on the day. Gas-fired generation is currently the largest single power source for US data centres; any sustained increase in that load base will feed through to gas demand even as operators pursue power purchase agreements for renewable output.
The next concrete signal will be FERC interconnection queue data for mid-2026, which will indicate whether the extensions granted to regional operators have produced actual project approvals or whether the backlog of pending grid upgrades continues to lengthen.