{"id":75122,"date":"2025-12-09T16:02:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T03:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/?p=75122"},"modified":"2025-12-09T16:22:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T03:22:46","slug":"why-is-ai-bad-for-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/video\/why-is-ai-bad-for-the-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"AI is worse for the environment than you think &#8211; here&#8217;s why"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The latest episode of the Greenpeace International podcast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TwiHGBl7dBY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">System Shift<\/a> dives into one of the biggest climate blind spots of AI: the energy hunger behind AI chipmaking.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-is-ai-bad-for-the-environment\"><strong>Why is AI bad for the environment?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n<p>You may have heard about AI\u2019s astronomical energy use of data centres, its dependence on fossil fuels and resulting greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n<p>But that\u2019s only part of the story of why AI is bad news for the environment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"835\" height=\"462\" src=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-aotearoa-stateless\/2025\/12\/bdc6ba9b-image.png\" alt=\"Close up of a computer chip - why AI bad for the environment\" class=\"wp-image-75124\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-aotearoa-stateless\/2025\/12\/bdc6ba9b-image.png 835w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-aotearoa-stateless\/2025\/12\/bdc6ba9b-image-600x332.png 600w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-aotearoa-stateless\/2025\/12\/bdc6ba9b-image-768x425.png 768w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-aotearoa-stateless\/2025\/12\/bdc6ba9b-image-510x282.png 510w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 835px) 100vw, 835px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-energy-hunger-behind-ai-chipmaking\"><strong>The energy hunger behind AI chipmaking<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n<p>The US company NVIDIA, owner of ChatGPT, made history last month when it became the first company to reach $5 trillion in market value. NVIDIA promotes its products as \u2018sustainable computing\u2019 and a climate solution, yet its supply chain tells a different story.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p>Manufacturing AI hardware is energy intensive. While the company is based in California, many of its major suppliers are actually operating factories in East Asia, in countries such as Korea and Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n<p>NVIDIA is essentially outsourcing its pollution to a region already heavily dependent on fossil fuels and deeply exposed to climate risks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-join-the-conversation-with-greenpeace-east-asia\">Join the conversation with Greenpeace East Asia<\/h2>\n\n<p>Join the conversation with Katrin Wu, Sunryul Kim, and Lena Chang from Greenpeace East Asia and find out about their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eastasia-stateless\/2025\/10\/128afb32-supply-change-2025.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">latest research into how AI is bad for the environment<\/a> and what true clean, responsible AI should look like.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\ud83c\udf99\ufe0f System Shift is back.\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TwiHGBl7dBY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The System Shift podcast dives into one of the biggest climate blind spots of AI: the energy hunger behind AI chipmaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":75124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16,113],"p4-page-type":[108],"class_list":["post-75122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-climate","tag-system-shift-podcast","p4-page-type-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.8 (Yoast SEO v26.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>AI is worse for the environment than you think - here&#039;s why<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/video\/why-is-ai-bad-for-the-environment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AI is worse for the environment than you think - here&#039;s why\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The System Shift podcast dives into one of the biggest climate blind spots of AI: the energy hunger behind AI chipmaking.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/video\/why-is-ai-bad-for-the-environment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Greenpeace Aotearoa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/greenpeace.nz\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-09T03:02:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-09T03:22:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-aotearoa-stateless\/2025\/12\/bdc6ba9b-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"835\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"462\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Greenpeace Aotearoa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@GreenpeaceNZ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@GreenpeaceNZ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Greenpeace Aotearoa\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/video\/why-is-ai-bad-for-the-environment\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/video\/why-is-ai-bad-for-the-environment\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Greenpeace Aotearoa\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/#\/schema\/person\/8beab5544a304a7ae0e50eaf7c998555\"},\"headline\":\"AI is worse for the environment than you think &#8211; 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