Emissions from the new data centres set to drive the UK’s AI “revolution” could be hundreds of times higher than government estimates, according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
There are dozens of data centres being developed across the country, potentially driving a surge in electricity demand.
Amid uncertainty about the scale and pace of this expansion, there are mounting concerns that new data centres could pose a threat to the nation’s climate goals.
UK government analysis concluded that the emissions from data centres would be negligible, even if they expand rapidly – a finding one campaigner tells Carbon Brief is “nonsense”.
In contrast, Carbon Brief analysis finds that emissions from powering data centres could be far higher than the government figures suggest, if at least a small amount of the electricity they need is generated by burning gas.
Data centres could run entirely on low-carbon electricity, but some in the sector have argued that the government’s AI ambitions require the UK to use more gas power.
If new data centres source a large amount of their power from gas, it could cause carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions equivalent to at least Denmark’s annual total.
‘AI superpower’
Data centres are energy-intensive computing facilities that are required to train and run complex AI models, among many other things.
The UK is one of the top-ranking nations for data-centre capacity, with roughly 1.8 gigawatts (GW) of facilities consuming more than 2% of national electricity. This could grow rapidly in the coming years as the government aims to make the UK an “AI superpower”.
Companies have already “achieved financial commitment” to invest in 71 new data centres that, if built, would require around 20GW of electricity, according to energy regulator Ofgem.
(For reference, the UK’s average electricity demand in 2025 stood at around 37GW.)
This potential increase in electricity demand has raised concerns from campaigners and some MPs about the impact of data centres on the UK’s climate targets.
Last year, the government’s plan for meeting its 2035 climate target noted that AI growth was “not factored into” emissions projections, although energy secretary Ed Miliband has said new data centres are captured in modelling of “overall electricity demand growth”.
The government is targeting a “clean power system” by 2030, with just a small amount of gas generation remaining. Extra demand from new data centres could require a rollout of clean power that is even faster than the growth already underway.
If clean-power growth does not keep pace, data centres could, therefore, prolong the use of gas power, either by requiring more gas to remain on the grid or by facilities building their own on-site gas generation.
There is significant uncertainty around future emissions from UK data centres, which will depend on the number of centres built, how clean their power is and when they come online.
The government published an analysis of its AI strategy’s climate impact last year, alongside a data-centre “roadmap”.
The analysis, released by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) suggests emissions from future data centres will be minimal – reaching a maximum of 0.142m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) from 11.2GW of AI-related computing power by 2035.
(There is an additional 2.4GW of data-centre demand in this scenario that is not associated with AI, for which emissions are not calculated.)
This figure is based on what DSIT describes as a high-emissions, high-AI growth scenario. Yet it implies that each unit (kilowatt hour, kWh) of electricity supplied to the 11.2GW of AI data centres would be associated with less than 2g of CO2. In other words, their electricity supply would need to be almost completely decarbonised. The government aim is for 50gCO2/kWh by 2030.
In addition, the DSIT figure – for emissions associated with the entire UK data centre fleet in 2035 – is much lower than the emissions estimates reported in planning applications for individual UK data centres made by Google and other companies.
Gas power
The chart below, based on Carbon Brief analysis, shows how data-centre emissions could be far higher than the government’s figures suggest.
Even if gas-fired electricity only accounts for 5% of their supply – indicated by the smallest blue column below – emissions from 11.2GW of data centres would be around 2MtCO2. This is more than 10 times higher than the government’s top estimate for 2035.
If the same data centres rely more heavily on gas, emissions could be hundreds of times higher, exceeding 30MtCO2. This is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Denmark. Emissions could rise even higher if capacity increases in line with the extra 20GW of data-centre demand that Ofgem says is in the pipeline, as indicated by the red columns
If data-centre expansion reaches 20GW and those centres rely heavily on gas power, then the figure could be as high as 70MtCO2, the annual emissions of Sweden. This would also be nearly 500 times higher than the government’s upper estimate, which it says is based on a “pessimistic decarbonisation” scenario.
(The numbers are not directly comparable as, unlike the AI-specific 11.2GW figure, it is unclear how much of this 20GW would be for AI, specifically.)
The government’s modelling states that AI emissions in 2035 would be “equivalent to below 0.05% of the UK’s projected total emissions”. It also says “this could be equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 5,000 to 23,600 UK households”.
On the contrary, Carbon Brief’s analysis suggests data centres could, in fact, be equivalent to as much as 20% of the UK’s projected total emissions in 2035.
As for the number of households, Carbon Brief estimates that future data centres could result in emissions equivalent to as many as 11.4m homes, roughly a third of all UK households.
Dr Tim Squirrel, head of strategy at Foxglove – part of an NGO group calling for more government scrutiny of data-centre emissions – tells Carbon Brief the DSIT figures are “nonsense and threaten to derail our carbon budgets”. He says:
“The figures that DSIT projects here wildly downplay data-centre emissions, even by the standards of the most optimistic energy transition scenario. There is no way that the amount of compute they anticipate can be built and produce the miniscule emissions they’re calculating.”
In its analysis, the government attributes the low emissions figures to “more efficient models and hardware” and “the UK’s ambitious targets for electricity grid decarbonisation”.
When asked by Carbon Brief, DSIT declined to provide any more information about its analysis.
Clean growth
While the UK is prioritising data centres for AI, there is mounting industry pressure to allow gas-power expansion for this “critical” infrastructure, as is happening in, for example, the US and Ireland.
Developers in the UK have reportedly already “turned to gas” via private electricity supplies, due to struggles securing a connection to the public network.
Yet, new data centres could be completely emissions-free if they are powered entirely with on-site clean energy or using electricity from a decarbonised grid.
As it stands, most data centres are connected to the electricity grid. Some enter power purchase agreements (PPAs) in which they financially support renewable-energy operators, allowing them to describe their electricity as clean.
Katie Davies, head of energy and infrastructure policy at techUK, a trade association representing the technology sector, highlights this expansion of PPAs as important for driving the growth of wind and solar power:
“In doing so, data centres actively contribute to additionality by unlocking extra carbon-free capacity that might not otherwise come online.”
A report last year by Aurora Energy Research found that data centres could provide a “route-to-market” worth up to £35bn for 19GW of UK renewables. However, it added:
“If renewables capacity and networks don’t keep pace, additional data centre demand will likely be met by carbon-intensive sources of generation.”
The UK’s “AI opportunities action plan” includes the establishment of “AI growth zones“, which the government says will be in areas with “available clean energy”. It is also overhauling the grid connection queue, which Davies says is important:
“Reducing this queue through strategic alignment and the removal of speculative applications will be vital to ensuring [data-centre] operators do not have to turn to higher-carbon energy sources as a last resort.”
Responding to Carbon Brief’s analysis, a government spokesperson said:
“We want the UK to be at the forefront of AI, but we are clear this must be done sustainably. That is why our AI growth zones are supporting development in areas with access to clean power, while the AI Energy Council is exploring how AI can be powered by responsible, clean-energy sources.”
Methodology
There is considerable uncertainty around data-centre power demand and emissions, with much of the relevant information not in the public domain. Carbon Brief has performed some rough calculations based on available data.
The government figure comes from an annex to DSIT’s UK compute roadmap. DSIT analyses the emissions impact of expanding the UK’s data-centre capacity to between 7.4GW in a “low compute-demand scenario” and 13.6GW in a “high compute-demand scenario” by 2035. (The majority of the demand in each scenario is from AI.)
DSIT also uses an “AI environmental impacts model” to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions from AI compute, only covering the 11.2GW AI component of data-centre capacity. It concludes that AI emissions in 2035 could range from 0.025MtCO2 to 0.142MtCO2. This includes both “direct” and “indirect” emissions, indicating that it covers more than just emissions from the electricity used to power the data centres.
A widely reported consultation by the energy regulator, Ofgem, found that there are proposals for around 140 new data centres in the UK, which would require 50GW of electricity if they were all built.
In reality, it is highly unlikely that all of these data centres will be completed, with a “significant number” expected to fail when trying to secure funding or planning permission.
The 20GW figure used in this analysis is based on the 71 “mature” projects that have “achieved financial commitment with final investment decision”, according to Ofgem.
Carbon Brief used the top government figure of 0.142MtCO2, even though it represents a “pessimistic grid decarbonisation” and “high compute demand” scenario.
To calculate the emissions from powering data centres in the future, Carbon Brief assumes a data-centre “load factor” of 90%, which is in line with other analyses. The analysis uses different shares of gas in the centres’ power supplies to indicate a range of future possibilities, assuming emissions from gas power are 0.4MtCO2 per terawatt hour.
The post Analysis: CO2 from UK data centres could be ‘hundreds of times’ higher than thought appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: CO2 from UK data centres could be ‘hundreds of times’ higher than thought
Brazil’s environment minister says he is “very optimistic” that the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) – a new rainforest fund to channel private and public finance to developing nations – can meet a key $10 billion funding target this year, and is not at risk from his country’s elections next month.
The TFFF, launched by Brazil at COP30 in the Amazon last November and co-led by Norway, is intended as an alternative to traditional grant-based forest finance. The fund aims to raise $125bn in public and private capital, invest it in bond markets, and then pay countries that keep their forests standing from the annual returns. Donor contributions needed to get it going have tailed off after an initial burst.
Speaking to Climate Home News on the sidelines of Climate Week in New York, Brazilian environment minister João Paulo Capobianco pointed out that in less than a year since its official launch, the TFFF has already secured $7.3bn from governments.
“How many other initiatives can say that?” he asked. “Of course, if you have $7 billion, it’s easier for more countries to consider their own contribution. And not just countries – non-governmental organisations also. We are expecting even more support.”
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As its initial target, the TFFF aims to raise $10bn in seed capital from governments by the end of 2026, and still needs to fill a gap of $2.7bn. Its backers say that for each dollar in public funding, they can secure $4 from the private sector. Critics say the $10bn goal barely covers the fund’s expenses and would not allow it to make any significant payments to forest countries.
Because setting up its financial architecture, raising the starting capital and making the first investments will take time, experts say the TFFF is unlikely to generate any payments for developing countries before 2028.
Seeking new pledges
Capobianco told Climate Home News that Brazil is still in talks with potential new contributors to the fund, among them China, Korea and Japan, and said he hoped to see more pledges announced at the upcoming biodiversity and climate COPs in October and November. The Netherlands is expected to up its first small contribution and Canada may also come in, according to other sources close to the TFFF.
Because the fund was not created as part of the UN climate talks and is hosted by the World Bank, developing countries can contribute without taking on wider donor responsibilities for climate finance. Brazil and Indonesia – both large emerging rainforest nations – have each pledged $1bn to the TFFF.
Earlier in September, the UK became the latest country to pledge funding – promising a loan of £400 million (about $540 million). Capobianco welcomed the contribution and noted that Britain has also said it will keep “under review” the possibility of putting in more.
Currently the largest donor is Norway, which announced a $3bn pledge last year at COP30 in Belém. However, that pledge came with conditions, among them that the fund must reach $10bn in sponsor capital by 2026, and that Norway’s contribution can’t make up more than 20% of that total. Over the longer term, this means the fund must raise $15bn from governments to unlock Norway’s full investment.
Comment: UK’s budget juggling trick with rainforest loan for bus-fare cap needs transparency
Speaking at a forest finance event in New York, Norway’s environment minister Sigrun Aasland said the country’s pledge was made not “only out of solidarity but because of shared interests”, adding that protecting rainforests is critical for climate and biodiversity goals as well as for national security.
“Tropical deforestation matters to people in the Amazon and in the Congo. But let’s not forget that it also matters to global food production and to the cost of living in Oslo or in London,” she said.
At the event, Guyana’s minister of natural resources Vickram Bharrat said the TFFF is “one in a menu of options” to finance forest protection in developing countries. He added that to boost its capital “maybe we should put some amount of pressure on oil companies to contribute to the fund”.
Upcoming election “not a risk”
Brazil, which has been pivotal to getting the fund off the ground, is now heading into a national election that could see the country swing back to an anti-climate stance if right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro beats current left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Capobianco, however, said the election result does not pose a risk to the TFFF.
“It’s a global initiative, not a Brazilian initiative. We proposed the first idea, but nowadays it’s a global initiative,” he said. “We believe the investor countries and the tropical countries together have the possibility to continue this process.”
In Brazil, the first round of voting is scheduled for Sunday, October 4. If no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes, a run-off ballot will take place on October 25.
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In July, the TFFF board adopted a charter, which outlines the instrument’s objectives and values, including that 20% of the payments made to tropical countries will go directly to Indigenous people and local communities.
The charter also says the TFFF board may comprise up to 12 member countries during the initial phase. Currently, seven seats are filled by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Germany, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Indonesia.
The board has also formally incorporated the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) – the TFFF’s investment arm that will trade bonds in financial markets – hosted in Luxembourg.
The post Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone
Patrick Schröder is a senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Environment and Society Centre.
A climate summit serious about implementation cannot afford to leave major emissions reductions off the table. Yet, that is the risk COP31 faces unless it makes reducing raw material use central to the way countries decarbonise their economies.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last week, COP31 host Türkiye laid out proposals to accelerate emissions cuts in the next decade. Its plans include global goals to increase the share of recycled products in material use to at least 15% (up from 6.9% in 2025) and halve waste generation by 2035.
COP31 offers an opportunity to connect efforts to improve material circularity with stronger national climate commitments and mitigation pathways. But these targets could be a lot more ambitious.
The case for circularity
The Paris Agreement cannot be delivered through cleaner electricity alone. We must also reduce the emissions that are embedded in the way we extract resources, manufacture products, build infrastructure and dispose of waste.
Circularity principles are pivotal to credible mitigation pathways: designing technologies and products to last, repairing and reusing them, and reducing demand for virgin resources.
The scale of the opportunity is striking. A recent European Environment Agency review found that adopting such principles could deliver average global emissions reductions potential of 52% in the waste sector against a business-as-usual scenario, 48% in construction and buildings, 28% in transport and mobility, 26% in industry and 24% in agriculture.
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These figures make a compelling case for raising circularity ambitions across the economy, offering the promise of far more than better recycling bins.
In fact, recycling minerals used in cleantech equipment, for example, illustrate the extent of the emissions savings available. The carbon footprint of minerals and metals recovered from secondary sources is up to 80% lower than those produced from new mining and processing, according to the International Energy Agency.
A major EU-funded project estimates that recovered materials could substitute up to 56% of Europe’s primary critical raw material requirements by 2050, provided they achieve the necessary quality. The main takeaway goes beyond Europe: yesterday’s products can become tomorrow’s strategic resources while mitigating climate change.
In this light, a target to increase the share of recovered material use to 15% isn’t enough.
The evidence-based Circularity Gap Report found a 17% target by 2032 is possible and could unlock additional emissions reductions amounting to several gigatonnes of CO2.
Reducing material demand
A higher circularity metric is only part of the answer, however. An economy can increase its recycling rate at the same time as extracting more primary materials if total material demand keeps growing.
The tougher issue governments need to address is identifying what reductions in primary material use are needed.
The Circularity Gap Report uses an indicative benchmark of eight tonnes of virgin materials consumed per person annually. This is already being translated into policy: Germany’s 2024 circular economy strategy aims to reduce primary resource consumption, with the German Federal Environment Agency identifying six to eight tonnes per person as an ambitious target.
Reducing primary material demand will require a closer integration of energy and resource policies. Efficient EVs charged with solar power can complement better public transport and walkable cities, while batteries designed to be repaired and reused for stationary energy storage before being recycled will reduce the materials footprint of transport and clean energy services.
Coordinated infrastructure development and urban planning can prevent unnecessary overbuild, while renovating existing building stock reduces demand for new steel, cement and aluminium, which are emissions-intensive to produce. Connecting industrial waste heat to district heating networks can further reduce energy demand and emissions.
What governments should agree at COP31
COP31 can translate this approach into three concrete commitments.
First, governments should agree a stronger circularity ambition, supported by material-footprint indicators and milestones. The presidency should seek recognition of these priorities in negotiated outcomes, alongside concrete delivery partnerships under its COP31 Action Agenda.
Second, countries should include quantified circular economy measures in their updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and implementation plans. Such measures should include reuse, material efficiency and circularity targets, as well as transparent estimates of emissions savings that avoid double counting across sectors. By the end of 2025, countries had developed 101 national circular economy roadmaps and action plans, yet these often remained disconnected from their NDCs.
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Third, climate finance should support the delivery of circular solutions such as material recovery at scale, investments into circular critical mineral value chains beyond mining, developing a circular plastics economy, and designing buildings and cities that support material reuse. Developing countries need technology, affordable finance and support to deliver these ambitions, including for the informal workers whose livelihoods depend on recovering and recycling materials.
The test for COP31 is to reach an agreement that can start the transformation of our production and consumption systems and how they are financed.
A headline circularity target will achieve little without policies that address absolute resource demand and deliver measurable emissions cuts. But COP31 offers an opportunity to make circularity a central element of climate policy, with targets strong enough to matter and institutions equipped to deliver them.
The post COP31 must aim higher to cut emissions from the use of materials appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 must aim higher to cut emissions from the use of materials
An exceptional El Niño is building. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says it has intensified to very strong levels and is likely to last at least through February 2027. If its current trajectory holds, it could become stronger than anything seen since WMO monitoring began four decades ago.
That is bad news for agriculture. El Niño – a naturally occurring weather phenomenon – can scramble rainfall patterns across the world, bringing drought to some regions and floods to others. And this time it is unfolding against the backdrop of a significantly hotter climate, with farmers already contending with unreliable growing seasons, extreme heat and less predictable rainfall because of global warming.
El Niño expected to bring next record-hot year as soon as 2027
We are seeing the consequences already. In Sri Lanka, drought linked to El Niño has dried wells and reservoirs and cut into crops and farmer incomes. Indonesia is experiencing its worst wildfire season in 11 years, with prolonged drought and extreme heat exacerbated by El Niño. And in Peru, authorities are preparing for the opposite extreme: intense rains, flooding and landslides which the national civil-defence agency says could affect around 1.2 million people.
These impacts will multiply as El Niño intensifies.
And yet, just as the risks to food production are rising, the money available to help farmers withstand them is shrinking.
10% funding decline in 2024
A forthcoming analysis from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that climate-related development finance for agrifood systems is moving in the wrong direction. In 2024, the latest year for which data is available, it fell by 10 percent compared with a 2 percent overall decline. The sectors that put food on our tables — crops, livestock, forestry and fisheries — received just 5 percent.
Yet this is precisely the moment when climate investment in agriculture needs to grow, not shrink. It can help communities adapt, build resilience and protect food security, while unlocking larger flows of public and private finance. Agriculture feeds us, supports the livelihoods of well over a billion people, and is often the first sector hit by drought, floods and extreme heat. Cutting that investment now is a false economy.
One failed harvest can plant the seed for the next crisis, forcing farmers to eat the seed they have saved for planting, sell livestock or tools, or take on debt. It can also deepen food insecurity, disrupt supply chains and drive up prices, showing up months later in supermarket aisles far away.
The Central American Dry Corridor, stretching through much of the region, shows both how exposed farmers are, and what investment can do. Based on an analysis of 41 years of satellite observations, FAO finds that some crop and pasture areas there face more than a 50 percent chance of agricultural drought over the coming months.
About half of Central America’s 1.9 million producers of maize, beans and other basic grains live in the Dry Corridor. Many grow food both for sale and for their own families. When a harvest fails, they lose both income and dinner.
El Salvador project conserves water and soil
In El Salvador, which lies within the Dry Corridor, more than 50,000 farmers have adopted practices to better withstand drought and increasingly unreliable rainfall through RECLIMA, a project financed by the Green Climate Fund and implemented by FAO in partnership with the government of El Salvador. It has substantial national co-financing, including from the country’s Environmental Investment Fund.
El Niño can intensify El Salvador’s annual mid-season dry spell, known as the canícula, turning it into a longer, harsher drought just as maize needs water most.
For María Cristina Corvera de López, a second-generation farmer in rural Nahualapa, adapting means changing how every drop of rain is captured and used. She plants trees alongside her crops to provide shade and minimise evaporation and uses simple irrigation channels and a homemade drip system to conserve water. Instead of burning stalks, leaves and husks after harvest, as generations before her did, she turns them into mulch to hold moisture in the soil.
“The effects of climate change are a constant challenge,” she says. But the new techniques have made her farm more resilient to El Niño as well. Where she once harvested about 50 bags of maize per acre, she now gets around 80, even during droughts. It’s enough to feed her family and sell the surplus.
Managing risk now cuts future costs
Together, these adaptations can mean the difference between losing a crop and getting through a dry season with enough food, seed and income to plant again. They are also the result of climate finance invested before disaster strikes.
RECLIMA shows what that kind of adaptation investment can buy. Adaptation accounted for 45 percent of climate-related development finance to agrifood systems in 2024, and multilateral development banks are directing more agricultural finance towards resilience. That shift reflects a growing recognition that adaptation is a form of risk management, not just a development cost.
We need much more of it. The same investments that help farmers withstand El Niño also enable them to adapt to a hotter, more unpredictable future. Cutting investment in the people who produce our food just as climate risks intensify does not save money. It simply pushes a much larger bill into the next harvest, the next food crisis, and the next El Niño.
The post As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers appeared first on Climate Home News.
As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers
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