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Google Undercounts Its Carbon Emissions, Report Finds (theguardian.com) 21

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2021, Google set a lofty goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. Yet in the years since then, the company has moved in the opposite direction as it invests in energy-intensive artificial intelligence. In its latest sustainability report, Google said its carbon emissions had increased 51% between 2019 and 2024.

New research aims to debunk even that enormous figure and provide context to Google's sustainability reports, painting a bleaker picture. A report authored by non-profit advocacy group Kairos Fellowship found that, between 2019 and 2024, Google's carbon emissions actually went up by 65%. What's more, between 2010, the first year there is publicly available data on Google's emissions, and 2024, Google's total greenhouse gas emissions increased 1,515%, Kairos found. The largest year-over-year jump in that window was also the most recent, 2023 to 2024, when Google saw a 26% increase in emissions just between 2023 and 2024, according to the report.

Google Undercounts Its Carbon Emissions, Report Finds

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  • by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @12:08PM (#65491486)

    In its latest sustainability report, Google said its carbon emissions had increased 51% between 2019 and 2024.

    Why would anybody trust Google's number on that in the first place?

    • Why would I trust The Guardian or some random "advocacy group"?

      The "advocates" beg the question of whether offsets matter and just throw them out in their analysis, while including any emission no matter how tangential. They are no more trustworthy than Google, and probably less. The Guardian can't be trusted at all.

      • Why would I trust The Guardian or some random "advocacy group"?

        Better odds of honesty than self-reporting.

        • That is not a sound assumption.
          • Yes, it is.

            • Why? In this case, we have a group that says it is focused on "racial and economic justice" publishing a report on corporate emissions. An advocacy group mind you - so they are focused on promoting a specific agenda, not presenting unbiased findings. Their incentive is to produce biased findings that promote their agenda. Google also has an incentive to be deceptive, although for them there would be consequences if they bent the truth too far (from shareholders if nobody else). The Kairos Fellowship fa
              • Why?

                Because I used the word 'odds'.

                I am only saying that this report...

                What you originally said was: "Why would I trust The Guardian or some random "advocacy group"?", not "why would I trust this specific report"?

              • Well yes, that is what progressive Neo-liberals do; they lie.

                Shocking that you would think Google, the Guardian or any 'advocacy group' would ever tell anything close to the truth it's only about there particular bottom line.

    • I actually think the difference between 51% and 65% is surprisingly small.
  • ...between 3:00am and 3:30am Sunday morning."

  • It's not a positive association. Absolutely every company in the world would do the same.

  • https://www.kairosfellows.org/ [kairosfellows.org]

    What? "Racial and economic justice"? Under all the word-salad in their self-description, it just sounds like they are a bunch of race-baiting socialists. Nowhere do they say they do any environmental work, and they don't mention this study at all. WTF?

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