Nvidia chip emissions match Russian state coal producer, report says

Emissions from operating the Nvidia chips sold since 2022 could have released between four and 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025, on par with the coal sold by Russian state-owned Russian Coal. That is the headline from a briefing published in September by eight groups including Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth, Beyond Fossil Fuels and Stand.earth, and covered by Euronews.

The report's other big number comes straight from Nvidia's own sustainability disclosures. Supply-chain emissions rose from 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020 to 10.7 million tonnes in 2026, a 725% rise, or an added 9.4 million tonnes. Greenpeace East Asia, one of the co-authors, said the jump was 'primarily driven by upstream emissions from producing the components, materials, and manufacturing services required for its GPUs and AI systems.'

The lead author, Oslo-based climate and energy analyst Ketan Joshi, does not hedge. 'The biggest AI profiteer also has one of the world's most obscured and opaque climate footprints,' Joshi says. He calls Nvidia's argument that AI drives a net climate benefit 'a greenwashing tactic.'

Nvidia's head of sustainability, Josh Parker, pushed the other way. 'The very rapidly growing consensus is that AI is most likely to lead to net emissions reductions,' Parker said, with the company pointing to the International Energy Agency and the World Economic Forum for support. The report challenges Nvidia's 'demand response' defense with Princeton research suggesting that kind of grid flexibility covers less than 1% of the year under high data center growth scenarios.

Jill McArdle, an international corporate campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, kept the framing political. 'Europe is being sold a fantasy of green AI while Big Tech drives a massive build-out of emission-pumping data centres,' she said.

Two of the researchers in our Who's Who tracker shared the piece the same day.