Stop Dirty Data Centres protests span 15 European countries

More than 100 civic and environmental groups in 15 European countries are staging two days of coordinated protests on 6 and 7 November against the build-out of large data centres, the Guardian reports. The campaign, calling itself Stop Dirty Data Centres, is demanding an immediate moratorium on large-scale projects.

Planned actions include demonstrations outside the Polish parliament in Warsaw, in Dublin, outside a Microsoft facility in Denmark, in Amsterdam, and on London's Brick Lane.

"Communities and civil society from across Europe are rising up to stop dirty data centres where they live and demand their politicians impose moratoria on large-scale data centre developments," said Owen Espley, the campaign coordinator.

The organisers lean on energy, water and land arguments. Research by Germany's Öko-Institut projects that AI datacentre emissions will increase six-fold by 2030 compared to 2023 levels. In the UK alone, potential CO₂ emissions from the sector could reach 123 million tonnes over ten years. The country has 315 data-centre projects awaiting grid connection, representing 73 gigawatts of energy demand, exceeding the UK's entire peak demand of 45 gigawatts.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Foxglove, a London campaign for a "fairer technological future", are backing the protests. They arrive as the European Commission pushes to at least triple EU data-centre capacity within five to seven years under its AI Continent Action Plan.