A co-founder of OpenAI, also a leading AI scientist, recently shared his vision for the future — a planet covered with data centres and solar panels to fuel energy-intensive AI systems.
If this vision leaves you uninspired and listless, you’re not alone.
As leaders of civil society organisations working on the intersections of technology and environmental justice, who have seen the rise and rise of energy-intensive technologies like AI, we feel the same way.
Unfortunately, the European decision-makers do not seem to agree with us all. The recently-voted in European Commission seeks to pursue an approach to ‘clean growth’ that serves industry’s interests over our rights and the fight against the climate crisis. The focus of this ‘just and competitive’ ‘green transition’ would be on economic growth and industrial policy, by means of digitalisation.
All of this, despite ample evidence that tech-driven solutions will not fix the environmental and climate crises, unless they also support just systems and shifts to lifestyles with less environmental impacts.
Moreover, across the climate justice and digital rights movements, we’ve both witnessed the harmful consequences of this narrow ‘tech-solutionist’ approach.
Technology, as shaped by today’s market-driven priorities, carries immense hidden environmental and social costs. The tech sector is one of the fastest-growing contributors to waste and energy consumption. In 2021, it was responsible for two-to-three percent of global carbon emissions — on par with aviation.
For instance, Microsoft’s emissions of the poisonous carbon monoxide gas have surged by nearly 30 percent since 2020, largely due to the expansion of its data centres. Similarly, Google’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 were almost 50 percent higher than in 2019.
The rise of generative AI is especially concerning, as it heavily relies on electricity. It’s expected to send energy use, carbon emissions and water usage through the roof. A study finds that a simple ChatGPT exchange requires about one litre of water.
The exponential resource demand for AI means that any efficiency improvement thanks to this tech will not be enough to outweigh its huge energy footprint.
The tech industry is also, in part, responsible for the EU’s ‘crusade’ to siphon off critical materials from resource-rich countries. Most of our digital devices, services, platforms and infrastructure depend on resource extraction and labour exploitation – often from Global Majority countries.
Why, then, in the face of ample evidence to the contrary, are EU decision-makers fixated on technology as the solution to the climate crisis?
This is because of the false assumption that the digital and green transitions are ‘twins’ and always mutually reinforcing. It creates a misleading and harmful narrative that such initiatives would solve the climate crisis and provide new economic opportunities. Our experience shows that this narrative is well-rooted in Brussels – fuelled by Big Tech lobbying and market-driven logic.
For example, the nascent EU industrial policy is mainly based on techno-solutionist assumptions, and what researcher Seda Gürses calls a ‘superficial understanding of digital infrastructures’.
The world’s largest economies, including the EU, aim to "win" the green transition by boosting their companies' competitive edge, dominating green technology, and growing their economies. In the end, Europe's industrial policy may end up ‘cementing the infrastructural power of tech companies’ and the way they have transformed our ‘production environment’ — often at the expense of a fair and just transition for all.
Addressing climate change at the scale required may be impossible without cutting-edge technology.
However, we need technology and digital infrastructure free from the logic of never-ending growth underlying the tech industry’s economic model. States and corporations’ techno-solutionist promises only further the climate crisis, and amplify colonial dynamics of labour and resource extraction. These practices undermine the rights of global majority countries and marginalised communities, who bear the brunt of these crises.
What we need instead is a reflective change about the circumstances in which technologies are designed, produced and deployed, and by/for whom. We need to question the profound grip that giant tech companies have on our economies, institutions and lives.
Moreover, digitalisation must be decoupled from growth by centring economic and resource justice. For this, we need to ask the question — what would community-based, alternative tech look like, which serves people, democracy and the planet?
‘Digitalisation’ should be a means to more well-being, more equity and a healthier natural world. Efficiency gains need to be part of a sufficiency strategy for goods, services and information flows – which is about preserving energy, resources and the safety of all people.
Concretely, we hope to see the EU make the ‘right to repair’ a reality, to actively decrease the demand and address the emission, energy and resource use of the technology sector. The EU must build on the small progress that the current legislation provides in terms of reporting requirements on their environmental and social impacts.
More importantly, Europe must heed the voices of non-profit organisations calling for a focus on material and energy sufficiency. This includes supporting community-driven, socially just, and sustainable technologies.
Claire Fernandez is the executive director of European Digital Rights (EDRi). Katharina Wiese is the policy manager for economic transition and gender equality at the European Environment Bureau (EEB).
Claire Fernandez is the executive director of European Digital Rights (EDRi). Katharina Wiese is the policy manager for economic transition and gender equality at the European Environment Bureau (EEB).