New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

> New gas projects linked to just 11 data center campuses around the US have the potential to create more greenhouse gases than the country of Morocco emitted in 2024

"Have the potential to", "Morocco". Presumably doesn't count the greenhouse gases emitted by Moroccans using overseas cloud services and AI.

At least the example wasn't Vatican City.

Very quick Googling suggests Wired’s estimate would be ~1.9% of US emissions.

AI data center investment is, at core, a bet on increasing the productivity of labor. That’s what businesses will pay for, and what will earn the big money.

If US labor productivity rises by more than 2%—and implicit in the size of this bet is a guess much higher—US carbon intensity goes down correspondingly, and these data centers end up as a win for the climate.

In history of the world there was almost never a reduction of greenhouse emissions. Only time that world did reduce greenhouse emissions was in times of economic crises and COVID-19.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

Asia will do what US did in 1979, Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on July 15, 1979.

"Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/carter-...

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You are supposing that with more productivity people will emit less carbon but there's no mechanism for that

More productivity means the employers just demand more from the workers