Business AI and the climate: why Google and Amazon are missing their targets

Deploying AI for business demands enormous amounts of electricity: Google and Amazon are officially behind on their own climate targets, because the energy appetite of neural networks makes net-zero pledges unattainable, The Guardian reported on 6 July 2026.

Why net-zero slipped out of reach

In the early 2020s, Google, Amazon and other tech giants publicly committed to reaching carbon neutrality by the mid-2030s. The goals looked realistic when most of the computing load came from search queries, streaming and cloud services.

The race for AI leadership upended their energy balances. Training and running inference on large language models requires thousands of GPU servers working around the clock, and electricity consumption has proved an order of magnitude higher than for traditional cloud operations. The companies cannot expand their share of renewable generation as fast as their computing capacity is growing.

The Guardian states that Google's and Amazon's net-zero commitments have "moved out of reach." A similar story is playing out outside the US: according to the publication, Scotland's flagship AI project, billed as a model of green energy, has no realistic plan for switching to renewables.

Data centers versus local communities

The energy burden is not only a corporate and climate problem but also a source of acute social conflict. In the US, residents of regions where large data centers are being built openly say the facilities are "forced on them against their will" without regard for local opinion.

The protest has taken on a political dimension: Americans are launching recall procedures against local officials who approved the construction of AI infrastructure. Rising electricity rates, strain on the grid and environmental consequences are what residents associate with corporate AI projects. Data centers are no longer seen as neutral infrastructure and are becoming a symbol of the unequal distribution of the benefits and costs of technological progress.

What is happening at Meta

Alongside the climate crisis, The Guardian reports on Meta's strategic scramble: the company is searching "frantically" for new lines of business. Details have not been disclosed publicly, but describing the situation as "frantic moves" points to serious pressure on its core business model.

Meta is in a particularly difficult position: its advertising model faces competitive pressure, regulatory risks are growing, and its bet on the metaverse has not yet lived up to expectations. The AI bet has become a requirement for staying competitive, and at the same time a source of new environmental and reputational risks.

Meta is not an exception. The entire Big Tech sector faces an equation with incompatible variables: aggressive AI scaling and meeting ESG commitments cannot be reconciled without fundamentally new energy solutions.

What this means

AI has become a structural climate risk for the tech sector. The faster companies expand their computing infrastructure, the further their carbon-neutrality promises recede. Investors, regulators and ordinary citizens have already noticed the contradiction, and the latter are starting to turn their discontent into direct political action. The industry needs either fundamentally different energy solutions or an honest revision of its climate commitments.

*Meta has been designated an extremist organization and is banned in Russia.

Why does business AI get in the way of climate goals?

Deploying neural networks requires enormous amounts of electricity, which contradicts pledges to reach net-zero emissions by the stated deadlines.