The Guardian's Run of Climate Journalism
(And how little it often seems to matter, when it comes to meaningful reforms)
A few months ago, I wrote about the environmental damage caused by data centres, a key pillar of the m̶o̶n̶o̶r̶a̶i̶l̶ artificial-intelligence hype cycle we’ve all been living through these past few years. This Sunday, The Guardian released another major data point in that damning run of evidence against the value of aggressively pursuing this middling, ethically complex range of tech, which is exacerbating our climate crisis.
The headline says it all, really: “Data center emissions probably 662% higher than big tech claims. Can it keep up the ruse?” But the whole article, which is based on in-house research analyzing data from 2020 to 2022, is still a solid read, because it explores the “creative accounting” that allows companies to boast of being carbon friendly, and even of improving their stats, while continuing to do nothing of the sort.
Of particular importance to this Guardian investigation is how accurately Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta are reporting emissions figures, as they fall into three “Scope” categories, and are separated between official count and location-based data. Scope 1 emissions come from direct greenhouse gas (GHG) contributions. Scope 2 emissions come from external sources used to fuel their business—say, from purchasing energy from utility companies and similar generators. Scope 3 emissions come from any other emissions sources not factored directly into fuel and electricity.
Now, we have a carbon accounting oversight group called the GHG Protocol, which is supposed to help keep companies accountable for their emissions figures. But there’s a bit of a war in process between tech giants over the standards that should be used to measure themselves. (Hey! No conflict of interest there, right?) Through an advocacy group, Amazon and Meta keep pushing for renewable energy certificates (Recs) to remain in the GHG Protocol’s assessment figures. These Recs allow companies to buy renewable energy and have those actions count against a company’s total emissions—even if the renewable energy isn’t being used on-site.
Conversely, Google and Microsoft are pushing for Recs to be excluded, and for emissions ledgers to based primarily on time- and location-specific data: the logical, more rigorous standard for seeing who’s actually emitting the most, and by how much.
Yet none of these companies (or Apple) are being proactive when it comes to sharing their emissions data. As The Guardian noted, not one of the big five has disclosed all of its official and location-specific data for the full range of Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. And yet, whenever investigative journalists were able to find and compare each company’s location-based data, the differences were staggering.
As Isabel O’Brien writes,
The massive differences in location-based and official scope 2 emissions numbers showcase just how carbon intensive data centers really are, and how deceptive firms’ official emissions numbers can be. Meta, for example, reports its official scope 2 emissions for 2022 as 273 metric tons CO2 equivalent—all of that attributable to data centers. Under the location-based accounting system, that number jumps to more than 3.8m metric tons of CO2 equivalent for data centers alone—a more than 19,000 times increase.
A similar result can be seen with Microsoft. The firm reported its official data center-related emissions for 2022 as 280,782 metric tons CO2 equivalent. Under a location-based accounting method, that number jumps to 6.1m metric tons CO2 equivalent. That’s a nearly 22 times increase.
While Meta’s reporting gap is more egregious, both firms’ location-based emissions are higher because they undercount their data center emissions specifically, with 97.4% of the gap between Meta’s location-based and official scope 2 number in 2022 being unreported data center-related emissions, and 95.55% of Microsoft’s.
And this isn’t even counting the third-party data centres used by these companies, which would be listed under Scope 3 emissions, but often get undercounted or miscounted thanks to how all involved companies handle their emissions data.
The above Guardian article closes by noting how much artificial intelligence has added to the surge of data-centre emissions since 2022, and includes deep uncertainty as to whether the electricity grid can handle the impending demand.
And all of this is exactly what a newspaper is supposed to do: to advocate for an issue of relevance to everyday citizens, especially if it’s the sort of problem that a company or government can’t be trusted to share or act upon on its own.
The Guardian has been doing similar around climate change and environmental themes for years. It’s been reporting on abusive industry practices, concerning figures about the accelerating pace of climate change, and government and business inaction even when faced with the very real consequences of environmental upheaval.
But therein lies the challenge.
What do we do when such reporting isn’t enough?
What do we do when the facts just don’t stinkin’ matter?
When politicians wage whatever wars they want, and corporations pursue whatever profits they desire, and when the well-meaning among us run around thinking, “Well maybe it’s because they just don’t know any better! Maybe, once they see the facts laid out indisputably, they’ll finally see the light and pursue change”?
Like a victim relentlessly trying to justify their abuser’s actions, we are gosh-darned good at acting as if the problem is something we can “fix” by trying to get the other party to see things from another point of view for once.
And we’re committed to the bit, too—no matter how much we get burned on the way.
Here’s a sampling of Guardian stories from up to sixteen years back.
I remember this first vividly. I still had access to a print version of The Guardian at the time, and I remember being moved and exhilarated by the research poured into this exposé. That’ll get ’em! I thought. The Fourth Estate had done its job, and companies had been caught red-handed as our major culprits in climate change.
Now they had to change, right?
But let’s compare the above with a piece that came out earlier this year:
Huh. In 2013, before the Paris Agreement, 90 companies were reported as being responsible for two-thirds of man-made emissions—and now, from 2016 on, it turns out that 57 companies are linked to 80% of emissions.
Does that sound like knowledge has empowered us to make better choices?
Oh, but, gosh, maybe we’re still being unfair to Big Business. I mean, how could these companies possibly know how bad all these GHG emissions were going to be for the environment? Maybe if someone had reported that the world was warming faster than our models suggested it wou—oh, wait. No. No, we did that, too:
and
And yes, I’m being a little facetious here. It’s not that nothing happened in this time frame for the better. We’ve absolutely seen a great many people and organizations fight for better climate outcomes over the last two decades. We also witnessed some extraordinary news events, like this one from 2021, which described a (minor, fleeting) activist takeover targeting the boards of oil companies directly:
But there’s still a deeper, unrelenting grind to our fight to generate substantial eco-social wins from all this grim data not only about climate change but also about the overwhelming resistance from Big Business to winding down its own activities.
Take this Guardian piece, for instance—from 2008, reflecting on a statement made in 1988, when James Hansen first tried to alert the public about global warming:
The op-ed goes on to say, while reflecting on his 1988 address,
While international recognition of global warming was swift, actions have faltered. The US refused to place limits on its emissions, and developing countries such as China and India rapidly increased their emissions. … Democracy works, but sometimes churns slowly. Time is short. The 2008 election is critical for the planet.
In four more years we’ll be “celebrating” four decades since Hansen’s initial address.
That will mean forty years (at least) of open dialogue in formal political spheres about the impact of our fossil-fuel-driven economy, and our cultural commitment to so-called “growth” at any cost (even at cost to our own health, livelihoods, and futures).
In 2028, that will be forty years (at least) of pushing back against climate denialism, much of which was funded by the oil and gas industry, and of otherwise trying to combat how unseriously corporations always take the dangers of GHG emissions.
And here’s where I’m supposed to make the pitch for “doing” something about it, right? For no longer being satisfied with trying to inform fellow citizens about the evils of Big Business? For taking to the streets and “making ourselves heard”?
Oh, but that’s been done, too—
In that furious Guardian op-ed from ten years ago, Bill McKibben argued,
So now, with that information clearly on the table, it’s time for college boards and foundation heads, church denominations and city mayors to act and act firmly. By divesting—by announcing that they are breaking ties with these companies—they will begin the process of politically bankrupting them. Of taking away the social license that allows them to act with such consummate arrogance, on the very day that the planet’s scientists laid bare the impact of climate change on everything from crop yields to civil wars.
It’s never fun to see one’s cynicism confirmed. But Monday was a day for reality, on the scientific front but also the political, economic, and corporate.
The only open question left is what we’re going to do about it.
This is now a Tuesday, a decade later, and what have we done about it?
It isn’t responsible to do nothing, to wallow in despair and recrimination just because everything we’ve done to date has yielded so little in the way of meaningful reform.
But it’s also a bit delusional not to remember that we have always been in this fight, and probably always will be: right until the actions of the wealthy and indifferent do irreparable damage to us and our loved ones, too.
So it goes. Now carry on.
Be well, be kind, and seek justice where you can.
ML
You’ve done great work here to analyze the Guardian, though I would still recommend that you look up the year-by-year record of global fossil fuel use, measured in terrawatt-hours, published by Our World in Data. It’s the only chart that really shows the truth about humanity - fossil fuel use was 31k in 1960, the year of my birth, and it’s risen, and risen, and risen, up, and up, and up, through all the years of the Guardian and environmentalism and net zero sugar and every minute and event of our lives to be at 140,231 terrawatt-hours in 2023.
No despair? No recrimination? Why not, given that indisputable record, that absolute certainty of continued mega-terrawatt-hours?
Humans “do” fossil fuels, which is worse than “doing” nothing, but it is what we have done, and what we will do.