AI Boosts Fossil Fuel Output, Raising Emissions by Up to 4.8%
Original: AI Could Help Fossil Fuel Companies Create More Emissions
Why This Matters
The study reframes AI's climate risk beyond data centers, pointing to its role in accelerating fossil fuel production at scale.
New research published in npj Climate Action warns that AI's productivity gains for the oil and gas industry could raise global energy-related emissions by 1.2–4.8%, far exceeding projected emissions from data centers. The study was authored by former Microsoft sustainability workers Will and Holly Alpine.
A peer-reviewed study published in the journal npj Climate Action finds that AI tools used by the fossil fuel industry could significantly increase global greenhouse gas emissions — not through the energy demands of data centers, but by making oil and gas extraction, refining, and electricity generation more productive and profitable.
Authors Will and Holly Alpine, former Microsoft sustainability workers who resigned in early 2024 over the company's continued partnerships with the oil and gas sector, modeled AI as a productivity enhancer across the fossil fuel supply chain. Using an economic model that incorporates reported efficiency gains from industry, they estimated that AI's enabling effect on fossil fuel production could add between 1.2% and 4.8% to annual global energy-related emissions. At the lower end, that is equivalent to Mexico's total emissions; at the upper end, it approaches Russia's — the world's fourth-largest emitter.
The researchers coin the term 'enabled emissions' to describe greenhouse gases that result not from tech companies' own operations, but from the downstream productivity gains their tools provide to fossil fuel clients. They argue that existing corporate sustainability frameworks focus too narrowly on operational and supply-chain emissions, ignoring this larger category of climate impact.
The paper also finds that AI's contribution to clean energy development — such as optimizing solar and wind — does not offset these enabled fossil fuel emissions. The net climate effect of AI, the study concludes, is currently negative.