Google and Amazon emissions surge as AI expansion overwhelms net-zero pledges
Google's carbon emissions rose 18% last year and Amazon's 16%, both companies reported this week, as the breakneck buildout of AI data centers consumes ever more electricity, making their 2030 and 2040 net-zero targets harder to reach.
Emissions spike
Google's total greenhouse gas emissions jumped 82% since 2019, with an 18% increase in the most recent year alone, according to its sustainability report released Tuesday. Amazon's report, published Wednesday, showed a 58% rise since 2019 and a 16% year-on-year climb. In absolute terms, Google emitted 18.8 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent last year, while Amazon's footprint reached 80.9 million tonnes, roughly the annual emissions of New Zealand.
- 82 %
- Amazon
- 58 %
Both companies are now polluting more for each dollar of revenue, a reversal from earlier trends. Amazon's carbon intensity, which measures CO₂ per dollar of sales, grew 3% in 2025, though it remains 38% below the 2019 level. For Google, emissions are rising faster than revenue for the first time in years.
AI as the main driver
The surge is tightly linked to the global race in artificial intelligence, which has forced hyperscalers to multiply energy-hungry data centers. Google's electricity consumption has doubled in three years and now approaches that of a country like Greece. Amazon's emissions from data center construction alone jumped more than 40% in one year, the fastest-growing category in its inventory.
Our deployment of AI infrastructure is currently accelerating faster than the power grid is decarbonizing.
The rise in demand could slow us.
Both executives acknowledged the tension in their companies' annual environmental reports. Years of renewable-power purchases helped keep a lid on direct operational emissions, but the sheer volume of new compute is outstripping those gains, pushing both firms toward new investments in natural gas generation.
Supply chain dominates Amazon's footprint
For Amazon, the largest share of emissions does not come from purchased electricity. Around 76% of its total carbon output now originates in its supply chain, a portion that grew 20% year-on-year. Purchased electricity accounts for only about 5% of the total. Data center efficiency, measured by Power Usage Effectiveness, stands at 1.14 at Amazon, trailing Google's 2024 figure of 1.09.
- Supply chain
- 76 %
- Purchased electricity
- 5 %
- Other direct operations
- 19 %
Amazon brought 80 new renewable and carbon-free energy projects online in 2025, raising its overall capacity to 42 GW across 712 projects. Nevertheless, the scale of AI-driven demand means total grid decarbonisation is not keeping pace.
Industry-wide reckoning
The trend is unlikely to be confined to Google and Amazon. Both Meta and Microsoft are expected to release sustainability reports soon, and observers anticipate similar trajectories. The tech sector's growing reliance on GPUs, concrete, steel, and cooling water for data center buildouts pushes large shares of emissions into Scope 3 categories, which are harder to control and reduce rapidly.
Net-zero promises strained
Google has pledged to halve its total emissions by 2030; Amazon aims for net zero by 2040. The latest data show both firms moving in the opposite direction. With AI adoption accelerating, the gap between ambition and reality is widening, forcing a reckoning over whether the current growth model can be squared with the industry's climate commitments.
