Big tech companies claim AI reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Google’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Kate Brandt, claimed AI could prevent five to 10 percent of emissions by 2030 in an op-ed she co-authored. That’s equal to the EU’s total annual emissions.
The source of the claim was a paper jointly published by Google and consulting group BCG. Ketan Joshi, an independent climate and energy analyst, authored a recent report, The AI Climate Hoax, commissioned by seven environmental organizations. In his research, Joshi found that Google’s BCG’s “analysis” was little more than a blog post. This suggests the giant behemoth Google based its claim about AI reducing emissions on a blog post.
Google touts its use of AI to lower greenhouse gas emissions in transportation and energy. The tech giant claimed that incorporating AI in five of its products enabled others to collectively reduce emissions by an estimated 26 million metric tons in 2024.
The company’s 2025 Environmental Report stated that rooftop solar power installations in the U.S. helped its solar production mapping tool, Solar API, which would “help enable partners” to reduce emissions by six million metric tons. However, that figure represents an estimate of the total emissions avoided by the solar installations, and it cannot be attributed to the AI mapping tool.
Big Tech’s Questionable Claims of AI Climate Benefits
Joshi’s report analyzed 154 statements by tech companies claiming that AI will be a net climate benefit. Institutions, including the International Energy Agency, also claimed that AI has climate benefits. The report found no examples of consumer generative systems, such as ChatGPT, achieving a “material, verifiable, and substantial level of emissions reductions.”
Google is not the only tech company touting the benefits of AI. A whopping 74 percent of big tech’s claims about the climate benefits of AI are a “hoax,” the report found. Only 26 percent of tech companies cited published academic papers, while 36 percent lacked any evidence. The report goes further, pointing out that AI is actually “serving the profits of tech and the fossil fuel industries.”
“The promises of planet-saving tech remain hollow, while AI data centres breathe life into coal and gas every day. These claims of climate benefit are unjustified and overhyped, and could cover up irreversible damage being done to communities and society,” says Joshi.
The Dark Hue of Greenwashing
The UN defines greenwashing as “misleading the public to believe that a company or entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is. There are five different greenwashing tactics companies use to deceive consumers: hiding emissions, empty promises, downplaying, tactical fatalism, and empty ambition. Joshi discovered that big tech companies use each one:
- Hiding emissions. Companies reported lower emissions with the use of accounting strategies, such as purchasing certificates, the modern-day equivalent of indulgences, for renewable energy, despite fossil fuels powering their actual operation.
- Empty promises. Companies make promises to deploy futuristic technologies, such as nuclear fusion, carbon capture and storage, space-based solar-powered data centers, or direct air capture of carbon. Although the claims are vaguely plausible, they are “incredibly expensive and unlikely to work.”
- Downplaying. Tech companies share “small and relatively meaningless disclosures” of AI’s supposed sustainability. For example, Google shared the emissions of a single chatbot query, while omitting the system’s emissions.
- Tactical fatalism. Prominent people in the tech industry label climate goals as unachievable. In 2024, Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt said, “We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway.”
- Empty ambition. Some companies pair ambitious targets with “notably insufficient action to achieve them.”
“The novelty of generative AI and data centre expansion has lent itself to a novelty of greenwashing tactics,” Joshi writes.
It’s Time For Real Climate Action
While big tech companies make claims about AI’s usefulness, the average global temperature continues rising. Last year, the average temperature rise was 1.44 degrees Celsius. That is just below the 1.5-degree threshold set by the Paris Agreement. The World Meteorological Organization called 2025 “one of the warmest years on record.”
It’s time for tech companies like Google and Microsoft to stop talking about the climate benefits of AI and take steps to actually reduce emissions. Ideally, this would happen before we go beyond 1.5 degrees.
