Google Deletes Net-Zero Pledge From Sustainability Website (nationalobserver.com)
- Reference: 0179020166
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/09/05/135248/google-deletes-net-zero-pledge-from-sustainability-website
- Source link: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/09/04/investigations/google-net-zero-sustainability
> Google's CEO Sundar Pichai stood smiling in a leafy-green California garden in September 2020 and declared that the tech behemoth was entering the "most ambitious decade yet" in its climate action. "Today, I'm proud to announce that we intend to be the first major company to operate carbon free -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," he said, in a video announcement at the time.
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> Pichai added that he knew the "road ahead would not be easy," but Google "aimed to prove that a carbon-free future is both possible and achievable fast enough to prevent the most dangerous impacts of climate change." Five years on, just how hard Google's "energy journey" would become is clear. In June, Google's Sustainability website proudly boasted a headline pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. By July, that had all changed. An investigation by Canada's National Observer has found that Google's net-zero pledge has quietly been scrubbed, demoted from having its own section on the site to an entry in the appendices of the company's sustainability report.
[1] https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/09/04/investigations/google-net-zero-sustainability
Google and pledges (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh hey just like that pledge not to use AI for weapons that they used to recruit top AI experts. After they did their work the pledge vanished.
Google's words are apparently worth nothing.
Of course they are well within their rights, given that they are part of the group of billionaires that purchased (or I guess leased) the governance of the united states.
This is what the majority wants (Score:1)
The administration has made it very clear that if you want to stay on their good side, all this climate action stuff has to go. And the majority voted for this administration. So this is literally what the majority of Americans want. Kind of. What they mostly want is a good job, reasonable pay, and the ability to afford a house. If you can give them that *and* stop climate change, they'd be on board.
Re: (Score:1)
Climate change will render all of that moot. It is the one thing that not even bloviating halfwits can alter. You see, people are morons.
Electricity will become like housing (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically unaffordable for anyone under 50 and a drain on anyone under 65.
So we can't physically build any more gas turbines because the companies that make them don't have any more capacity to make more.
It's too expensive for them to build more capacity given the risk of trump not getting a third term. Without a third term of trump they won't have the backing they need to make a profit if they expand.
Meanwhile Donald Trump and the Republican party have basically put the kibosh on all wind and so
Re: (Score:3)
[1]US gas-fired turbine wait times as much as seven years; costs up sharply [spglobal.com]
Companies like [2]Mitsubishi are looking to expand production [datacenterdynamics.com] but that is also not exactly a fast process
[1] https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/news-research/latest-news/electric-power/052025-us-gas-fired-turbine-wait-times-as-much-as-seven-years-costs-up-sharply
[2] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/mitsubishi-to-double-gas-turbine-production-in-response-to-surging-data-center-demand-report/
Re: (Score:2)
The turbines themselves are easily built. We have the manufacturing capacity, as do foreign manufacturers.
What we don't have is the (cheap) natural gas. My state, arguably one of the most screaming lunatic greenies of the bunch, recently passed a citizen's initiative against a moratorium on gas cooking/heating. On the surface, a nod to capping carbon emissions. But in actuality, an effort backed by our major private utility to reserve natural gas for its turbines. So they could sell the same energy to the
Um, no they're not (Score:2)
You need heavy manufacturing capacity for that. It's not that it's a difficult thing from a engineering standpoint it's just physically difficult. You have to build very large factories and because of the political situation there is no guarantee those factories are going to pay off.
And we absolutely do not have the manufacturing capacity. We have reached our limit on the number of gas turbines that can be built.
I guess you could make the argument that the rest of the world has more capacity but we
It was all good until AI (Score:2)
And suddenly they needed huge quantities of energy that they didn't need before. Oops, didn't see that one coming.
From "Don't be evil" to.. (Score:2)
... the worst spying, money-grubbing, planet-wrecking cunts in the world.
Well done, hope everyone still working for them are very proud of themselves and all they're doing.
Link to the CEO's words: (Score:2)
Here is where Google's CEO Sundar Pichai says:
"Today, I'm proud to announce that we intend to be the first major company to operate carbon free -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,"
https://youtu.be/oPz-6eCXpCo?t=143
"Google Tries Not To Offend Administration." (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just an attempt to not get pinged by the Trump administration for paying lip service to the Democratic Hoax of Climate Change.
Don't kill the messenger. I'm just saying what's happening. I don't agree with any of it, but we live in a world where the worst offense you can commit is popping up on Trump's radar as paying lip service to something he has decided doesn't exist.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just remember that the laws of physics don't give a fuck, and will crush us with as much ease and as little concern as a tidal wave crushing an ant.
That we imagine we can alter physics by denial is a sign of what an utterly idiotic species we are.
Re: (Score:1)
It's not even a matter of a change in plans, Google could be doing exactly what they were doing before but what the admin in concerned about is the appearance, they don't want Google having such things announced.
It all tracks with Ur Fascism point #3; Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identifi
Re: (Score:2)
They weren't going to make it to Net Zero by 2030 anyway. The combined power usage for Google's datacenters can probably be measured in gigawatts, and there is no way that all of that is "clean" energy. I doubt that they could even afford enough carbon offset credits to make it net zero without royally pissing off their shareholders.