This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including the devastating trail of destruction left by Hurricane Beryl and a new report highlighting Google’s exponential growth in emissions in recent years owing to artificial intelligence expansion.
—
1. Google Emissions Grow 48% in Five Years Owing to Large-Scale AI Deployment, Jeopardizing Company’s Net Zero Plans
Google generated an estimated 14.3 million tCO2e in 2023, a 13% increase from 2022, as revealed in its annual environmental report released Tuesday, saying the primary cause was AI’s growing energy demand. The tech giant, which is valued at approximately US$754 billion, aims to achieve net-zero emissions across all operations and value chain by 2030.
According to the report, Google’s data centers account for around 7-10% of global data center electricity consumption, which the International Energy Agency (IEA) says represents 1-1.3% of global electricity demand. Owing to the expansion of AI services, Google’s data center electricity consumption last year grew 17% compared to 2022, a trend the company says is expected to continue in the future.
Owing to datasets and models becoming more complex, the energy needed to train and run AI models has skyrocketed in recent years, exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more here.
2. Deadly Hurricane Beryl Marks Exceptionally Early Start to Atlantic Hurricane Season As Experts Blame Ocean Warming
Hurricane Beryl roared across the Windward Islands in the Caribbean on Monday as an “extremely dangeous” Category 4 hurricane, leaving one dead, downing power lines, and flooding streets.
It made landfall on Grenada’s Carriacou Island in the Caribbean Sea, leaving a trail of destruction in its path. In a briefing broadcast on social media, Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said the island had been “flattened” in just half an hour, knocking down trees and power lines and leaving “widespread … destruction and devastation.” A person was reportedly killed in the capital St. George as a tree fell on a house.
Hurricanes – also known as typhoons in the northwestern Pacific and cyclones in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific – are a rather common weather phenomenon, though there has been a significant increase in their intensity in recent decades, which scientific observations link to anthropogenic climate change. These abnormal trends are attributed largely to the increased ocean temperatures. In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season will likely be “above-normal,” owing to near-record ocean heat and La Niña condition. If true, the predictions would make this year the ninth consecutive to see an above-normal hurricane season, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Read more here.
More on the topic: Opinion: Hurricane Beryl – Another Harbinger That We Are Not Doing Enough
3. Biden Unveils New Extreme Heat Rules for Workers As EPA Report Warns Heatwaves, No 1 Killer in the US, on the Rise
The new rules, proposed by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), include “requirements for identifying heat hazards, developing heat illness and emergency response plans, providing training to employees and supervisors, and implementing work practice standards” such as “rest breaks, access to shade and water, and heat acclimatization for new employees.” Approximately 36 million workers across the country would be affected by the new rules, which mark the US’s first-ever federal safety standard addressing excessive heat in the workplace, according to a White House statement.
The increase in extreme heat is a direct result of human-made climate change. As greenhouse gas emissions trap more heat in the atmosphere, heatwaves – the deadliest type of extreme weather event – get longer and hotter. In the US, extreme heat kills more people than any other weather hazard. An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report published Tuesday said unusually hot summer days and nights have become more common in the US over the last few decades, while heatwaves went from an average of two per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s and 2020s.
Read more here.
4. US Supreme Court Overturns Critically Important Ruling for Environmental Protection Enforcement
For 40 years, the chevron deference doctrine has granted federal agencies the power to provide expert opinion on how bills in the US should be interpreted. The Supreme Court decision on Friday to overturn this ruling could have disastrous consequences for federal ability to provide expert perspective on and enforce environmental protections.
The Court’s decision means that federal court judges are able to provide their own interpretation of laws, that will then become the enforced definitions and decisions of federal acts. Environmental NGOs fear that this will allow for biased, non-expert rulings to weaken and prevent critical application of public policy, especially related to environmental protection. This could mean that foundational legislation like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act could all be at risk of significant weakening under court systems and legislative sessions that favor industrial activity, leaving no room or ability for experts within federal agencies like the EPA to create and enforce rules they deem necessary to protect public health and natural resources.
Read more here.
