Speaking at London Climate Action Week this Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres launched a bold new call for the global artificial intelligence industry to confront its underreported environmental impact, launching the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative to force greater accountability from technology firms powering the AI boom.
Guterres demanded that AI developers and operators disclose full data on carbon emissions from their infrastructure, as well as the volumes of water and land consumed to run energy-intensive data centers. The push for transparency comes as local communities and regulators have increasingly raised alarms over the rapid proliferation of AI-focused data centers, whose environmental costs have largely been hidden from public view.
Beyond transparency, the UN chief set a binding industry target: all AI facilities must run on 100% renewable energy – including wind and solar power – by 2030. “No more hidden costs,” Guterres told attendees of Europe’s largest independent climate conference. “No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean.”
The explosive growth of generative AI and large language models has sent global demand for data center capacity soaring, undermining even the most ambitious climate pledges from the world’s largest tech firms. While industry leaders including Google and Amazon have already vowed to transition to clean energy by the end of the decade, the AI race has sent greenhouse gas emissions from data infrastructure climbing sharply, as regulatory delays and grid constraints slow the buildout of new renewable projects.
Current global energy data from the International Energy Agency underscores the scale of the challenge: Coal still powers 30% of global data center electricity demand, while renewables account for just 27% of the sector’s supply, with natural gas contributing 26% and nuclear 15%. Over the next five years, projections show renewables will only meet half of the new electricity demand generated by the AI boom. A recent UN report warned that the combined water, energy and carbon footprint of AI infrastructure will double by 2030, with AI-related data centers set to consume nearly 3% of global electricity by the end of the decade – up from 1.5% in 2025. That puts the overall environmental footprint of the data center sector on par with some of the world’s largest national economies.
Guterres acknowledged that AI carries significant potential to accelerate climate action, noting the technology can improve energy efficiency and cut global emissions across sectors. But he emphasized that affected local communities are too often left unaware of the harm caused by new data centers built near their homes, calling for radical transparency to redress this imbalance.
The proposal comes as the UN prepares to convene global leaders for this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Turkey, where nations will negotiate new steps to hold global warming to the 1.5°C threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. Last year marked the first time the three-year global average temperature breached this critical limit, increasing urgency for deeper emissions cuts across all sectors.
In his address, Guterres reiterated his longstanding call for urgent global climate action, including deep cuts in methane emissions – a super pollutant responsible for roughly one-third of current global warming – and a rapid phase-out of coal, oil and gas. He framed the current global climate moment as a “Tale of Two Crises”, drawing on Charles Dickens’ classic novel *A Tale of Two Cities* to reflect the duality of progress and risk visible today.
“For the climate agenda, this is indeed the best of times and the worst of times,” Guterres said. “The worst – because climate impacts are intensifying, tipping points are looming, and the energy crisis has exposed the deep risks of dependence on fossil fuels. But also the best – because the renewables revolution is well underway.”
Guterres highlighted that progress in renewable energy is already accelerating: falling technology costs have driven rapid adoption, and in 2025, growth in clean power generation outpaced overall global electricity demand growth for the first time. Last year also marked a historic milestone, as renewables surpassed one-third of the global electricity mix for the first time in modern history, while coal’s share fell below one-third. China continues to lead the global clean energy transition, and fossil fuel generation is on a downward trajectory across most of Europe.
But major barriers remain, Guterres warned, pointing specifically to policy shifts in the United States under the Trump administration, which has rolled back support for renewables and doubled down on domestic fossil fuel production. He also highlighted the ongoing global energy crisis exacerbated by conflict, calling the U.S. war in Iran “the mother of all energy shocks” that has further delayed the clean transition.