Half a decade ago, Google expressed certainty it would achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, powering all its operations through renewable sources like solar and wind while offsetting its environmental impact. The company now characterizes these objectives as extremely ambitious. Microsoft maintains its commitment to becoming carbon negative by 2030 but has shifted its messaging to emphasize this as a long-term endeavor rather than a quick achievement.
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence technology is creating obstacles for technology corporations trying to fulfill their environmental promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which primarily stem from burning fossil fuels and contribute to global warming. These companies say they need flexibility while rapidly constructing massive data facilities that can require more electricity than major metropolitan areas.
“Even if they haven’t officially revised their goals, they are starting to acknowledge that, ‘Yeah, we’re maybe not on track,’” said Patrick Huang, a senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
According to Huang, these corporations must now utilize any available power sources to remain competitive, which increasingly means turning to natural gas, primarily composed of methane, a significant contributor to global warming.
While technology companies purchased unprecedented quantities of renewable energy in 2024 and 2025, according to the Clean Energy Buyers Association, their overall emissions continue climbing.
During approximately the initial five years of their environmental commitments, Google’s emissions increased almost 50%. Amazon experienced a 33% rise, Microsoft saw increases exceeding 23%, and Meta’s emissions grew by more than 60%.
Data centers consumed approximately 4.6% of America’s total electricity in 2024, a proportion that government projections suggest could nearly triple by 2028. Some industry experts forecast nationwide electricity consumption could increase by as much as 20% over the coming decade, with data centers playing a major role.
Additionally, a backlog of proposed energy projects waiting for grid connection approval and efforts by the Trump administration to reduce support for renewable energy may impact technology companies’ environmental objectives and extend dependence on fossil fuels, according to experts.
“Each of these alone could be real challenges,” said Julie McNamara, associate policy director at Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate & Energy program. “Together, it’s just creating a real near-term crunch on the system.”
Technology companies maintain they have achieved substantial emissions progress through efficiency improvements, purchasing renewable energy credits and clean power, and mandating supplier emission reductions.
However, natural gas supplied more than 40% of electricity powering American data centers in 2024, while coal provided 30% globally, according to the International Energy Agency. This pattern shows no signs of reversing. Utilities nationwide are planning natural gas facilities to supply data centers, while some technology companies are designing on-site gas plants exclusively for data center use.
“Companies are scrambling to try to get as much power as they can as quickly as possible,” said Lori Bird, director of the U.S. Energy Program at the World Resources Institute. “It’s a mad rush and a lot of competition for resources.”
Microsoft President Brad Smith told The Associated Press that he is “confident in our ability” to meet the company’s 2030 goal to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits by investing in new sources of carbon-free energy, including nuclear, solar and hydropower.
In Wisconsin, two new natural gas facilities supporting a Microsoft data center will be balanced by solar investments elsewhere in the state. Similarly, three natural gas plants will supply electricity to a large Meta data center in rural Louisiana, while the company invests in solar power in other locations.
Google reports investments in wind, hydropower, battery storage and advanced nuclear technology, though it also depends on natural gas. The company plans to purchase electricity from a natural gas facility being constructed at the Archer Daniels Midland corn processing plant in Decatur, Illinois, where carbon dioxide emissions would be captured and stored underground.
To support clean energy objectives, technology companies rely on power purchase agreements and renewable energy certificates, tradeable commodities that support new and existing sources. However, this approach could become more challenging under proposed changes to greenhouse gas reporting requirements, which would mandate that sources be located in the same region as company data centers and match operational hours – for instance, solar credits could only apply to daytime operations.
While some new gas facilities will replace dirtier coal plants, investment recovery typically takes about 30 years. This timeline delays the broader shift to clean and renewable energy when the United Nations Environment Programme cautions that high-emission countries are unlikely to achieve their own greenhouse gas reduction targets. Artificial intelligence is partially blamed for a 2.4% increase in U.S. fossil fuel emissions last year, according to research by the Rhodium Group, an independent research organization.
Although other economic sectors are also electrifying, “it is only because of these data centers that these gas plants are being built,” McNamara said. “There are no two ways about it.”
Securing adequate electricity was difficult even before President Donald Trump assumed office last year and targeted renewable energy initiatives.
He has terminated grants and permits for solar and wind developments and eliminated tax incentives for renewable energy, which supporters argue can be constructed more affordably and rapidly than natural gas or nuclear facilities, while directing several coal-fired power plants scheduled for closure to continue operating.
Many corporations established goals anticipating federal tax credits would encourage wind and solar development, said Rich Powell, chief executive officer of the Clean Energy Buyers Association. However, the Republican-controlled Congress and Trump eliminated those incentives.
Trump, who has labeled climate change a “hoax,” has contended that green energy is unreliable and costly and could threaten national energy independence.
Powell stated his association has “been very, very clear with this Congress and this administration that all technology should be on a level playing field and that we’re putting both energy affordability and energy reliability at risk if we don’t do that.”
Josh Parker, sustainability chief for chipmaker Nvidia, argued that artificial intelligence will eventually decrease electricity consumption because it operates more efficiently than conventional computing. He warned that restricting energy development could cause America to lag behind in AI advancement.
“Our perspective is that we need an all-of-the-above approach to energy,” he said.
Technology companies would have struggled in 2020, when many established goals, to predict current energy requirements because much of the technology and equipment used to train machine-learning models – which consume most data-center electricity – were just being introduced, said Jay Dietrich, who researches AI sustainability for the Uptime Institute and previously led emissions goal-setting at IBM.
By 2023, he noted, technology companies “had a pretty good idea things were going to get a lot more exciting … and that the numbers were going to grow quickly.”
He anticipates many will extend timelines for emissions goals, based on a 2025 Uptime Institute survey showing a 12% decline in operators saying they would achieve a market-based 2030 carbon-neutral goal. Nevertheless, despite increasing emissions, the largest companies should afford sufficient renewable energy and offsets to meet carbon-neutral objectives.
McNamara described the surge in electricity demand from data centers as transforming a challenge into “an outright crisis.”
“Tech companies are allowing implicitly or explicitly an enormous increase in fossil fuel dependence under their watch and because of their actions,” she said.
