United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stepped up pressure on artificial intelligence companies Tuesday, demanding they publicly disclose how much carbon pollution, water, and land their operations consume.
Speaking at Europe’s largest independent climate conference — London Climate Action Week — Guterres unveiled what he called the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative. The proposal calls on AI companies to measure and make public the environmental toll of their fast-growing technology, which has already drawn criticism from communities living near data centers and from governments pushing for standardized industry reporting.
Guterres also called on these companies to pledge that their facilities will run entirely on electricity generated by renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, no later than 2030.
“No more hidden costs,” he said at the conference. “No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean.”
A number of major technology companies have already promised to transition to cleaner energy sources, with some aiming to meet that goal before the end of the decade — including through solar and nuclear power. However, the explosive growth of AI has complicated those pledges, pushing greenhouse gas emissions higher. Regulatory obstacles have also slowed the development of climate-friendly energy projects.
According to the International Energy Agency, coal currently supplies roughly 30% of the electricity used by data centers worldwide. Renewable sources — mainly wind, solar, and hydropower — account for about 27%, natural gas provides 26%, and nuclear energy contributes 15%. Renewables are projected to meet only half of the growing demand over the next five years.
While many, including Guterres, have pointed to AI’s potential to help speed up climate solutions — improving energy efficiency and cutting emissions — the technology’s environmental footprint is already comparable to that of some of the world’s largest nations, according to a UN report released earlier this month.
That same report found that the water consumption, energy use, and pollution linked to AI are expected to double within four years. Data centers powering AI accounted for approximately 1.5% of global electricity use in 2025, a figure projected to climb to nearly 3% by 2030.
“Despite these obvious concerns, communities are often left in the dark about the environmental impact of the infrastructure rising around them,” Guterres said.
The UN chief has consistently pushed world leaders to take aggressive climate action and will again bring nations together at this year’s annual Conference of Parties, set to take place in Turkey.
On Tuesday, addressing AI’s environmental impact was just one piece of a broader set of actions Guterres said are needed to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius — or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit — above pre-industrial levels, a target established under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Last year marked the first time the three-year temperature average surpassed that threshold.
“Every major emitter must accelerate action,” Guterres said. “And every country must over-deliver on its commitments.”
He called for steep reductions in methane — a greenhouse gas responsible for about one-third of global warming and far more potent than carbon dioxide, though it breaks down more quickly in the atmosphere. He also urged countries to reduce their reliance on coal, oil, and natural gas.
Guterres did highlight some encouraging signs in the clean energy transition. Falling costs are driving wider adoption of renewable technologies, and clean power generation — led by solar and wind — outpaced total global electricity demand growth last year. For the first time in modern history, renewables made up more than one-third of the world’s electricity supply in 2025, while coal’s share dipped below one-third of global generation.
China remains the leading force in the global shift toward clean energy, and fossil fuel use in Europe is broadly declining. In contrast, the United States under President Donald Trump has moved to embrace coal, oil, and gas while cutting support for renewable energy and climate initiatives — changes occurring alongside a global energy crisis worsened by the U.S. war in Iran, which Guterres described as “the mother of all energy shocks.”
Drawing on the setting of his London address, Guterres framed the current moment as “A Tale of Two Crises” — a nod to Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale of Two Cities.”
“For the climate agenda, this is indeed the best of times and the worst of times,” he said. “The worst — because climate impacts are intensifying, tipping points are looming, and the energy crisis has exposed the deep risks of dependence on fossil fuels. But also the best — because the renewables revolution is well underway.”
