Environmental AI, energy, water and climate
Every AI answer, image and song runs on physical machines. Those machines sit in buildings that draw electricity, use water for cooling, and are made from mined metals that eventually become waste. As use grows, so does that footprint, and it lands on particular towns, rivers and power grids. At the same time, AI is already helping forecasters predict storms with a fraction of the energy and helping scientists see hidden fishing fleets from space. Whether AI ends up helping or harming the planet overall depends on how efficiently it is built, how clean its power is, and what we choose to use it for.
Wonder
A better-watched planet
AI helps us see storms and floods sooner, and do more with less.
97.2%
of 1,320 forecast targets on which an AI weather model beat the leading conventional ensemble forecast. Measured
5 days ahead
AI forecasts of extreme floods on ungauged rivers matched or beat a leading system's same-day reliability. They run in over 80 countries. Measured
33-fold
drop in the energy of a median Gemini text prompt in one year, by Google's own unreviewed figures. Estimate
1,000 times less energy
per forecast is what Europe's weather center reports for its AI forecasting system, in operation since February 2025. By the center's account it is up to 20% better on some measures, including cyclone tracks. Reported
72% to 76%
of the world's industrial fishing vessels do not appear in public tracking systems. Deep learning on satellite images of coastal waters from 2017 to 2021 revealed them. Measured
54% fewer contrails
on 70 test flights where pilots used AI contrail forecasts, judged from satellite images, at the cost of 2% more fuel on those flights. Company-reported and not peer reviewed. Reported
It takes Clean power, published energy figures for every tool, and warnings that reach the people in harm's way.
Worry
Energy and water
1.5%
of the world's electricity went to data centers in 2024. Use is projected to more than double by 2030. Estimate and forecast
Under 1 to ~1,000 Wh
for one short AI video clip in lab tests of open models. A median text prompt is put at 0.24 Wh. Commercial video tools publish no figures. Measured
2 in 3
new US data centers built or planned since 2022 are in areas of high water stress. Measured
34% more water
used by Google in 2025 than in 2024, reaching 10.9 billion gallons across its data centers and offices. Its total electricity use grew 37% in the same year. These are the company's own figures. Reported
1.2 to 5 million tonnes
of electronic waste could come from generative AI between 2020 and 2030, depending on how fast it grows. Reuse and longer hardware life could cut that by 16% to 86%. Forecast
$11.7 to $20.9 billion
a year in public health costs by 2028 from the air pollution of power generated for US data centers, by one estimate. The study is a preprint and has not been peer reviewed. Forecast
What is being done
Data centers in Europe must report.
Since 2024, EU rules have required operators of data centers with at least 500 kW of IT power to report their energy use, water use, renewable energy share and waste-heat reuse to an EU database every year. Only aggregated figures are made public.
For artists and musicians
The tool you choose matters.
In lab tests of open AI models, generating images used on average 2.9 kWh per 1,000 images, about 2.9 Wh each, with wide variation between models. General-purpose generative models used far more energy than models built for a single task.
Worth knowing
Data centers are one part of a larger rise.
The International Energy Agency projects that data centers will account for around one-tenth of global growth in electricity demand to 2030, less than industrial motors, air conditioning or electric vehicles, but more than a fifth of growth in advanced economies.
An open question
Will AI's help to the climate ever outweigh its own footprint, and who would keep that ledger?
This page does not list everything. Last reviewed October 11, 2026.
- Measured counted or experimental data
- Survey what people report or believe
- Estimate a judgment or model, often a company's own
- Forecast a projection of the future
- Reported a company's, agency's or journalist's own account