At COP30 in Brazil, Tech’s Role in the Climate Crisis was a Footnote

Laís Martins is a fellow at Tech Policy Press.

In recent weeks, political leaders and delegations from around the world convened in Belém, the gateway to the Brazilian Amazon, for the thirtieth Conference of Parties (COP30), an annual United Nations gathering aimed at setting ambitious climate goals and sketching out a path away from fossil fuels.

The summit covered topics including how to ensure a just energy transition that builds up renewable energy sources without exacerbating inequalities, how to reduce deforestation and, chiefly, how to finance climate efforts and whether some countries should contribute more than others.

What emerged as a mere footnote, however, was how technology companies, and with particularly the onset of artificial intelligence, are contributing to the climate crisis.

Their role is not to be overlooked: according to UN estimates, the digital sector accounts for between 1.5% and 4% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Between 2020 and 2023, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google recorded an average increase of 155% in their indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Big Tech also plays a key role in enabling emissions from fossil fuel companies by selling their technologies, effectively facilitating more oil extraction.

As AI development surges, this footprint is only poised to increase. Around the world, including in the United States, technology companies and data center developers are tussling with local communities over vital resources like water, energy and air.

Part of the problem, according to a policy brief launched during COP30 by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN’s digital agency, is that countries might not even know precisely how much of their emissions come from tech. Because of the reporting methodologies for climate goals, countries don’t disclose emissions from the tech sector individually but rather as part of a broader category.

“This means countries neither quantify digital-specific emissions nor include digital-specific targets. Bringing clearer accounting and targets for data centres, networks and devices in other national strategies would strengthen overall credibility of climate commitments and help match digital ambition with commensurate decarbonization,” the ITU wrote in its policy brief.

Global civil society organizations held a press conference on November 14 in the Blue Zone, where both official negotiations and community discussions take place, about “AI’s global threats to climate and environmental justice,” but few attendees showed up.

During the press conference, Meena Raman, program director at Third World Network, a network of non-profit organizations that work across trade, climate change and technology, defended local calls for moratoriums on data center development, which are sprouting up globally as resistance to their expansions grow.

One of the highlights, however, was that for the first time, information integrity was included in the COP agenda and the right to reliable environmental information was acknowledged due to its importance toward mitigating climate change. As a result, the Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change was launched and endorsed by 12 countries.

Tech as a solution

While tech’s environmental footprint largely stayed in the backdrop at COP30, mentions of AI as a potential solution or tool to resolve the climate crisis were present all around the venue. Multiple panels touched on the topic, including ones on “AI for agriculture” and “Collaborating on AI for Sustainability at Scale.”

The COP summits only recently made technology a more prominent discussion topic. In 2024 during the COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, countries signed a first-of-kind document known as the Declaration on Green Digital Action, which sought to address technology as a double-edged sword. While the declaration highlighted technology for its potential to be used for climate action, it also stressed the need to mitigate its impacts, such as by cutting greenhouse emissions to zero and reducing the use of resources.

But so far, most of the discussion seems to be looking at how technology can be employed as a problem-solver rather than a driver of the climate crisis. While the panels that take place in the Blue Zone often differ from what is being discussed inside the official negotiation rooms by delegations, they, too, seem to be behind on the topic.

Still, AI is the new hot topic at the negotiation table. “AI is seen as a driver of innovation, but the challenge of its impact on territories, use of water and energy also appears” in talks, said Evelyn Gomes, executive-director at LabHacker, the Brazilian Laboratory on Digital Culture.

“For officials, this is still being brushed up on, while we, as civil society, have been discussing the same topic in a much more advanced manner,” said Gomes.

Outside the Blue Zone

Outside of the venue, in what has come to be known as the parallel COP, civil society organizations and activists held events and panels that put tech’s environmental impact center-stage. One panel focused on data centers and the indigenous resistance to it, while another focused on the impacts of the rare earth mining used to supply the tech and defense industries.

During the Global Climate March, which gathered more than 70,000 people in the streets of Belém outside the summit, activists held banners demanding “water and energy for the people, not for data centers.”

Big Tech companies sent delegates to Belém, and many of them held private events on the sidelines of COP30, but their focus was limited.

According to the official UNFCCC participants’ registry, tech companies registered at least 35 people to attend COP. Microsoft, Google, TikTok, AliBaba and Nvidia all sent representatives, from C-suite executives to content creators.

At the Ted Countdown House, Google held a dinner with Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer, on the topic of “AI for Nature”. The following morning, Microsoft hosted a breakfast event with its own sustainability lead, Melanie Nakagawa, titled, “Sustainability Markets: The role of business in building carbon removal with integrity at scale”. Google and Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.

According to Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit based in the US, COP serves as a big business conference for Silicon Valley, just like it is for fossil fuel lobbyists.

“One of the scariest parts about big tech is that they’re even more powerful than the fossil fuel industry”, said Su, who took part in the press conference on AI’s climate impact during the COP. “Right now, they’re brokering deals directly with countries to get their data centers in those countries to get their cheap energy and water.”

“It’s a colonial project from their end and they’re using the UN publicly to show ‘hey, this is for the public benefit,’” she added.