Europeans value costs, climate and transparency over uncontrolled data centre expansion
[This video was produced in partnership with Beyond Fossil Fuels]
The good people at Beyond Fossil Fuels have been covering the issue of data centres for a while now, pushing hard to both introduce critical scrutiny on their expansion while ensuring whatever development does occur is as clean as can be managed.
In response to their new polling examining awareness and opinions on European data centre expansion, I put together this brief little clip highlighting my own thoughts and reactions, and how it fits in with the bigger picture on the tactical demoralisation both fossil fuels and big tech use to push back against regulation in favour of shareholder value and profits.
Transcript
You are a good person. You support strong, immediate climate action. But you also feel like this isn’t something that you can bring up at a dinner party with strangers.
The good news is that you are not alone. The latest study on this came out in 2024 and it found that the majority of people support climate action.
This is not ideological. This is just the basic fact that all of us don’t like to pay more for energy while the sky also tries to kill us.
Here’s where things get interesting. The same study found that in every single country they studied, people massively underestimate the support for climate action for the people around them. We think that around 43% of the people around us support climate action, when in reality, nearly 70% do.
The fossil fuel industry loves talking about the extremism of those of us who like to imagine a world without them. They know that once we know, they are not mandatory, They’re kind of screwed.
The tech industry loves this style of thinking too. “AI is inevitable” “Either you get on board or you get left behind”.
But this industry has its own very significant impacts. Training and using generative AI requires massive amounts of energy, most of which is served by fossil fuels. And the European Union’s AI strategy sees a tripling of data centres in the region over the next few years.
The truth is, most of us value stuff that is important, like the amount that we pay for energy, the ability to drink fresh water, the ability to breathe fresh air, or to live in an atmosphere that is not overheating. Very few of us value social media slop or the ability to talk to chatbots over all of those things.
A new survey commissioned by Beyond Fossil Fuels released today found that the majority of people across five countries in Europe are worried that data centres will slow the energy transition, suck up resources and worsen power bills. Only 4% of people listed data centres as a top priority in the event of energy shortages, decarbonisation ought to be prioritised above big tech’s expansion. More than 80% want full disclosure of environmental impacts, energy usage and energy sourcing.
If you’re surprised to hear about how widespread the concern is around data centres, you have been subject to the same type of bullying from big tech that the fossil fuel industry has been doing for decades.
If you are concerned that carpet bombing power grids with city-sized data centres during an affordability and climate crisis is maybe kind of a bad idea, Beyond Fossil Fuel’s survey confirms that you are not alone.
And once we start to realise that we are not alone, big tech starts to realise that maybe it’s in trouble.
Extra links and references
Andre, P., Boneva, T., Chopra, F. et al. Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 253–259 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01925-3
The 89% project – “The 89 Percent Project is a year-long global media collaboration aimed at highlighting the fact that the vast majority of people in the world care about climate change and want their governments to do something about it” (Note: this is a higher percentage than the number in the video mostly down to them asking a broader question)
Vice Article – “Group That Called Extinction Rebellion ‘Extremist’ Is Funded By Big Energy”
IEA and Energy article – “AI, Energy and the Data Centre Surge: IEA’s Global Warning”
Ketan Joshi 