Environmental groups embrace AI despite warning of data centre impacts
Environmental organisations worldwide are using artificial intelligence to analyse climate data, track wildfires and count wildlife, even as they warn that the data centres powering AI are driving surges in electricity demand, water use and emissions. The trade-offs are expected to feature at the UN
Environmental groups worldwide are using artificial intelligence to analyse climate data, track forest fires and count endangered wildlife — embracing a technology they also warn is driving a surge in electricity demand, water use and greenhouse-gas emissions. The contradiction is forcing these organisations to justify their AI use in carrying out missions to combat climate change or protect natural resources.
"We recognise that AI can come with environmental costs, and we need to be thoughtful about how we use it," said Ali Swanson, AI lead at the US non-profit Conservation International. "But at a time when the climate and biodiversity crises are becoming more urgent, AI can help us move faster and make better use of the information we're collecting." The group recently started using AI to assess hotspots detected by satellites and send real-time alerts to community forest patrols about potential wildfires in remote parts of Cambodia.
Reuters interviewed 15 major environmental, conservation and development organisations about their AI use. All said they used the technology in some form and expressed concern about the environmental impact of the data centres powering it. The centres, filled with servers, can require vast amounts of electricity, along with water for cooling.
Researchers at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health estimate the global data-centre footprint could more than double by 2030, reaching a size about twice that of Jakarta, the Indonesian megalopolis. The International Energy Agency estimates global data centres will consume about 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030, producing the equivalent of more than 300 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — double current consumption and about equal to Japan's annual electricity use. The agency also projects that global data centre water consumption will increase from about 560 billion litres in 2023 to about 1.2 trillion litres annually by 2030.
Technology giants including Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet's Google have reported rising emissions linked in part to data centre expansion, raising questions about their ability to meet their own long-term climate goals. Amazon told Reuters its artificial-intelligence products were among the most sustainable due to the company's purchases of low-carbon energy and its efforts to use power and water efficiently. Microsoft and Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Many of the organisations that spoke to Reuters believe AI's benefits currently outweigh its costs because the technology is enabling work that was previously difficult, expensive or impossible. Kenya's Save the Elephants said it is using machine learning to improve population surveys and study elephant communication. Frank Pope, the group's chief executive, said an aerial survey of Kenya's largest protected area last year generated roughly 200,000 images that took nine people nine months to review manually. AI models trained on Nvidia's GeForce graphics platforms can now complete similar analyses in hours. "The results have been eye-opening," Pope said. "We found that human surveys were missing about a third of the elephants, roughly half of zebras and giraffes, and three-quarters of oryx populations."
Some organisations are experimenting with ways to limit the environmental impact of their AI use. The World Resources Institute limits resource-intensive applications such as generating videos and images, while caching AI query results so identical searches do not need to be reprocessed. The US-based Nature Conservancy has adopted a similar approach, installing AI-powered digital cameras aboard commercial fishing vessels to process information instead of uploading huge numbers of videos to centralised data centres. Greenpeace International said it uses some AI tools but is pushing back hard on the data centre buildout. "While other organisations are asking how to use AI responsibly, Greenpeace is asking whether it's necessary to build all these massive data centres in the first place," said Katrin Xueying Wu, a climate and energy campaigner with the group.
