Amazon’s ‘climate pledge’ rings hollow as data center will have the most polluting power plant in the U.S.
Amazon is investing in a natural-gas-burning power plant, as part of a huge data center in Texas, that could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States, the company confirmed Friday.
The new gas-burning plant, if built to specifications, would be permitted to release more planet-warming gases than any other power plant in the country.
Amazon has been struggling to meet its promise that it would effectively eliminate its planet-warming emissions by 2040 as part of the Climate Pledge, a voluntary agreement among companies that Amazon co-founded several years ago. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas is the main driver of global warming, which is dangerously heating the planet.
Amazon’s emissions have gone up each of the past several years. And the Seattle-based tech giant has acknowledged that rising emissions from A.I. data centers could get in the way of its climate goals.
“The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge,” said Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokeswoman. Still, “our commitment hasn’t changed,” she said. [Continue reading…]