Microsoft is producing more global warming pollution today than it did when it made its bold climate pledges in 2020. The company's greenhouse gas emissions actually increased by about 30% in fiscal year 2023, showing how difficult it will be for the company to address this issue. Compete to become an AI leader while achieving climate goals.
“In many ways, the moon is five times farther away than it was in 2020.”
Back in 2020, Microsoft set a goal to become carbon negative by the end of the decade. Translated into technical terms, it promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half and then capture more carbon dioxide than it emitted. This was a bold move, considering that carbon capture technology was just in its infancy. The company also needs to further promote the integration of renewable energy into the electricity grids in which it operates.
“In 2020, we announced something called the carbon moonshot. That was before the explosion of artificial intelligence,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview. bloomberg. “So in many ways, if you think about our own predictions about AI and its growing demand for electricity, the Moon will be five times as far away as he was in 2020.”
A closer look at the data in Microsoft's sustainability report shows just how far it's headed in the wrong direction. Last year, it emitted 15.357 million tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual carbon pollution of Haiti or Brunei.
Data centers used to train AI consume even more energy than traditional data centers, which already consume large amounts of electricity to run servers and cooling systems to prevent overheating. And Microsoft is going all-in on AI, with plans to build more data centers. The company had planned to spend $50 billion in the last fiscal year to achieve its AI ambitions, a figure expected to be surpassed next year. bloomberg I will report it.