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Google deletes net-zero pledge from sustainability website
- phendrenad2 1y agoNow that the pressure has subsided from institutional investors who used ESG as a regulatory capture mechanism, you can go ahead and 0% believe what corporations have on their website, rather than the 25% you could trust it before.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agohttps://archive.is/jlHRt https://archive.is/jlHRt
- barbazoo 1y ago> “Running the global infrastructure behind our products and services, including AI, takes considerable energy,” said Google in its Environment 2025 report, which explained that it will be almost impossible to meet its erstwhile net-zero ambitions, partly due to its expansion in AI. Greed, greed, greed. They'd rather see the world burn than not be first in AI whatever that means. They could still achieve net zero, they have just chosen not to. Unimaginable amounts of money but it's never enough.
- wnevets 1y agoCapitalism is the most efficient system for resource allocation or something.
- _mlbt 1y agoDo you have an example of an alternative economic system that is more efficient at resource allocation in practice, not just theory?
- throw-qqqqq 1y agoNo alternatives have been tried on a global scale, so I don’t think anyone has the practical evidence you request.
- _mlbt 1y agoI think a large nation the size of the former Soviet Union or China should be enough to invalidate communism and centrally planned economies if that’s what you’re suggesting.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoThose just invalidate totalitarianism. On the other hand, the US government uplifted itself from the great depression and won WWII thanks to a centrally planned economy. People like to forget about that fact though.
- _mlbt 1y agoHow do you achieve nation or world scale communism without totalitarianism? I am one of many people who know the history of communism’s failures and will never accept it willingly.
- frank_nitti 1y agoI would be more interested to see your response to the key point of their comment - that the US exemplified this on a large scale in recent history. That would be more compelling than to simply claim to have a lot of knowledge of history
- _mlbt 1y agoI don’t think the World War II economy is repeatable today. It was a time of great patriotism with the majority of the nation supporting the war. People were willing to sacrifice for the cause and accept rationing of goods and making substitutions. They also knew that these sacrifices were temporary and helped their loved ones win the war and hopefully return to them sooner. Today in America it is hard to get more than half the population to agree on anything. There is no unifying catalyst to bring about the consensus, cooperation, and personal sacrifice that would be necessary to implement a centrally planned economy in the United States today.
- nashashmi 1y agoResource allocation? Yes, normal socioeconomics. But did it have rapid growth trajectory? No. It lacked the ambition needed to drive humanity to maximum consumerism. Before capitalism and communism was a thing, we had normal economics. And the worst part of this in some places was the bourgeoisie. They kept the resources in their control. And communism was supposed to be a banging of the piñata that shook the tree. Capitalism was a response to communism, yet installed a basic transition to a socialist education system and for educational wealth to be added. I guess a good antidote to bad actors is for a wealth tax. Unused or underutilized wealth gets taxed until the net tax is reduced to whatever financial return it has.
- abdullahkhalids 1y agoThere are none. But I don't want the economic system to be judged by its ability to do resource allocation. I want my economic system to be judged by its ability to improve metrics of human well being - and not even the median well-being, but the well-being of say the 10% percentile person in society. Sure, resource allocation can be a instrumental to those goals of human well being, but not the directly optimized metric. So, for example, I care very little gdp/capita when you can just as easily measure life expectancy or food stress levels. On such counts, capitalism has a mixed record. Today, for example, a lot of countries that are "more capitalistic" than others have poorer metrics of human development than those that are "less capitalistic".
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- _Algernon_ 1y agoOne issue with capitalism — and every alternative system would have its own variant of this problem — is rent seeking. Players become so powerful within the economic system that they no longer play by the rules, but rather write the rules to their benefit. This allows them to extract value instead of creating value. This is a run-away positive feedback loop which is kept in check by regular revolt and redistribution of wealth (see eg. the labor movement).
- abdullahkhalids 1y agoYes. The obvious solution is to either design your politico-economic system that big players never emerge, or are such that they don't have incentives to corrupt (eg. SOE). Another example of the latter, is that large companies should always be majority owned by their employees in a 1/N fashion. The idea being that even if such players try to rent-seek, at least the rent is being extracted in favor of normal people rather than a small class of rich people.
- Muromec 1y ago>There are none. But I don't want the economic system to be judged by its ability to do resource allocation. I want my economic system to be judged by its ability to improve metrics of human well being - and not even the median well-being, but the well-being of say the 10% percentile person in society. That requires resource allocation as a prerequisite and a functioning democracy that values this metric. Blaming the first one for not having the latter is a choice, but a strange one.
- benlivengood 1y agoI'd wager the biological cellular economy is more efficient and more robust than capitalist economies. Not that I advocate nature red in tooth and claw as the epitome of governance.
- parthdesai 1y agoAI is literally an existential threat to their business, what are you talking about?
- _mlbt 1y agoMore than any other company, Google needs to succeed in AI. AI chat has already replaced search engines for many people. Nearly all of Google’s revenue comes from advertising.
- watwut 1y agoFunny enough, that was googles choice. And They made the search worst was consciously as a business strategy, because worst search meant more queries. And they forced ai on top of search because they wanted to.
- munk-a 1y agoThey're a dinosaur and have forgotten how to innovate and provide new value. This is what complacency and shifting your business to focus on regulatory capture ultimately leads to.
- ncruces 1y agoAre their competitors more energy efficient somehow? This is a thread about them not being able to meet carbon neutrality commitments because of AI, which they feel they need to because competitors are eating their lunch. Are the competitors not eating their lunch? Are they doing so because they're more green? Otherwise what are they expected to do? Not compete? “Innovate” themselves out of not needing energy consuming AI?
- dmbche 1y agoShit, I hadn't had that thought but it's self evident, the "worse search = more queries". Thanks for the insight.
- jm4 1y agoThey have a fiduciary duty to shareholders. Bailing on AI because they can't do that and also be net-zero is a good way to get sued.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoDon’t the shareholders benefit from having an earth worth investing in that isn’t falling apart from climate catastrophe in a few decades?
- fmbb 1y agoSued for what? AI is not making anyone money except Nvidia.
- watwut 1y agoActually, fiduciary duty is not actually a mandate to be a maximal psychopath nor a mandate to spend billions on high risk investments. As in, fiduciary duty does not prevent companies from being net-zero nor does it mandate AI.
- munk-a 1y agoNever before have I heard of lighting a pile of cash on fire being a fiduciary duty. Post-GPT AI may eventually prove a highly profitable venture - right now the only people making money are the shovel sellers and most of the launched applications can't seem to attract users at a price point that's sustainable.
- boringg 1y agoSo they don't make net zero but they still continue to improve their operations and have a lighter green footprint while maintaining themselves in the great AI race. Can anyone shed any light on the difference between net-zero and what they will actually be able to achieve? Will be hard given that the workloads for AI have sucked up all available energy resources. I have to think at the margin it is getting very expensive to acquire those resources.
- some_random 1y agoTo be somewhat pessimistic, these pledges always struck me as being fairweather, politically motivated, and deliberately gamed. That's not to say that it's meaningless there's definitely some good work being done, it's just that I don't think that work is all that connected to the pledges.
- _mlbt 1y agoThey were primarily motivated by ESG scores… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_gov...
- gosub100 1y agoCase in point: the work from home policies that have been largely rescinded since COVID.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoPledges are good. They give executives something to point to when they make short-term less-profitable decisions, and insulate them from shareholder lawsuits. Essentially then (and ESG) are a very lightweight opportunity to drive some long-term decision making into what is otherwise a relentlessly selfish and short term process. And as the expression goes: who knows, perhaps the horse will learn how to sing.
- mullingitover 1y agoMeanwhile China is on track to install as much solar power in the past year as the US has in its entire history. The US has maintained steep tariffs on solar panels. Clean energy isn't even some virtuous thing, it's just no-brainer smart energy policy. The only reason for Google to be backpedaling on its pledge is political. It's in a backsliding petrostate and it has to play the political game.
- dfxm12 1y agoIs there evidence that they are doing this to appease Trump? What if they wanted to do this anyway and recognize that at this time, they can use appeasement as a weaselly way to justify it.
- dpkirchner 1y agoI'm not sure we're going to find a smoking gun here -- like an executive saying this was removed because it made MAGAs irrationally angry, say.
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- lawlessone 1y agoProbably both really.
- Filligree 1y agoWho would want to? Solar power is cheaper than any alternative, so long as you’re allowed to use it.
- HardCodedBias 1y agoSolar power is much more expensive if the power must adhere to some number of 9's of reliability. Often data centers need to run at three nines of availability (ie: 99.9) and at that level of availability the price of solar power is many multiples of conventional power due to the cost of batteries and over provisioning.
- themgt 1y agoWe made a pledge "to prove that a carbon-free future is both possible and achievable fast enough to prevent the most dangerous impacts of climate change", but it turned out generating a short AI slop video uses 110kWh of energy. Anyhow, ...
- mempko 1y agoThe lesson here is clear, corporations won't do anything that's good for the ecology and survivability of our species unless forced.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoIf only we could remind them somehow that inevitable migration, famine, and mass death is not as profitable as alternatives.
- nathan_compton 1y agoWe could "remind them" by passing laws that made them pay for externalities.
- _Algernon_ 1y agoWho passes those laws? The politicians bought and paid for by the same companies?
- goku12 1y agoThat's the failure of the people. Those politicians are supposed to represent their constituents - not their highest bidder. Democracy is not a system where people choose a politician and hand them the power and authority over themselves for the next half a decade. Instead, people have to constantly and consistently boss them and hold them accountable. This is the duty of every citizen towards a democratic constitution, without which the latter is not even viable. I know what response to expect for the above. It will be contemptuously dismissed with the remark that it's just a fantasy. But I hope you're seeing the congress people running out of town halls via the backdoors in disgrace after their constituents heckled them and challenged their demagoguery. Sadly, it's a tad bit late. This should have been the response to much less provocation. Still, many of those politicians are now afraid to blindly endorse the ideas of their overlords. This concept isn't new either. This was widely experimented with during the French revolution. They had provisions to recall and replace the reps in such instances. What people need are political education and a strong allegiance to the constitution.
- gmuslera 1y agoDon't worry, in 100 years whatever remains of human civilization will be net zero.
- arm32 1y agoThis is what helps me sleep at night.
- gjm11 1y agoI think there's less to this than meets the eye. Previously, on https://sustainability.google/operating-sustainably/ https://sustainability.google/operating-sustainably/: "We've set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain by 2030." and, in a table later, "Reduce 50% of our combined Scope 1, 2 (market-based), and 3 absolute emissions by 2030. Invest in nature-based and technology-based carbon removal solutions to neutralize our remaining emissions." and "Run on 24/7 carbon-free energy on every grid where we operate by 2030." Now, in their 2025 Environmental Report at https://sustainability.google/reports/google-2025-environmental-report/ https://sustainability.google/reports/google-2025-environmen...: "We aim to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy on every grid where we operate by 2030." and "We aim to reduce absolute, combined scope 1, 2 (market-based), and 3 emissions by 50% from a 2019 base year by 2030." (They also restate the thing about "to neutralize our remaining emissions" a bit later in the document.) Exactly the same stated goals, just written in a different place. There's more hedging around it now: they call it a "moonshot" and say that they might not manage it, but they never actually promised to do it before.
- mullingitover 1y ago> There's more hedging around it now This is reasonable, it's a nearly impossible goal to achieve. Meanwhile: "Amazon meets 100% renewable energy goal 7 years early"[1] [1] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-renewable-energy-goal https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-renew...
- spencer-p 1y agoAmazon claimed their energy usage was "matched with 100% renewable energy" in 2023, while Google's goal is to actually "run on 24/7 carbon-free energy". Google already claims to have matched 100% of their energy with renewables since 2017.
- deelowe 1y agoCarbon offsets are not the same as being carbon neutral.
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- hungmung 1y agoI strongly suspect that the net zero thing is at least half bullshit anyway, and probably more like 90%. We have forests on paper that have no basis in reality, either because of wildfires or because they just planted seedlings in summer and they died immediately. Those carbon credits don't get negated though. But now you get a forest of carbon in the atmo + whatever emissions those credits justified, while "conscious consumers" pat themselves on the back for choosing net zero products. Where there is a layer of abstraction involving money, there is always bullshit.
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y ago[flagged]
- goku12 1y agoI don't think they started that way. Most companies start with lofty idealistic goals that motivate them to reach financial self sustainability. However from that point of time, any company is at risk of being taken over by people whose only motivation is wealth. They crossed that landmark a long time ago. Not a week goes by without another news of one of their latest transgressions. At this point, news like this isn't a sign of something worsening over there. It's just them carrying on with their mission to subvert each safeguard in the pursuit of that little bit extra profit.
- tomhow 1y agoPlease don't fulminate on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- neuroelectron 1y agoI feel like I should delete my gmail account but the way I use it is probably costing them more to maintain it than it's worth.
- 4ndrewl 1y agoI mean, if there's one thing we know about Google - give it a few years and they'll ditch that thing they were _so_ into. Products, principles, whatever.
- alfor 1y agoNet-zero is a bad goal, it set you up for failure in other area. EX: zero death from Covid, oh, we fck the next generation with isolation and screen. I singular objective like that make you blind, it become a god you sacrifice everything else to.
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- richwater 1y agoMaybe it should be the governments responsibility to ensure clean power is available? Why do private businesses need to resort to this kind of posturing.
- goku12 1y agoOur economy is energy-starved and our biosphere is in a precarious situation. Meanwhile, the current generation of AI is energy inefficient as hell, for both training and inference. They need massive datacenters to teach a model what little kids learn effortlessly. The two are neither compatible, nor sustainable. What fraction of AI training and inference is justifiable under the current circumstances? I understand that AI has some novel and urgent applications, including for tackling the crisis itself. But if the justification for AI chatbots for people too lazy to do an old-fashioned web search is corporate profits against the destruction of massive amounts of biomass, we better apply the emergency brakes on it fast. The biosphere and countless lives are vastly more important than the greed of a few rich people who don't even know what to do with the wealth they have.
- nemo44x 1y agoGoogle decision makers are obviously very smart people. Do decisions like this mean they acknowledge that net-zero is more a political ideal than an actually effective policy? After all, if they truly believed this was an existential issue they’d make every effort.
- stuaxo 1y agoBring back "don't be evil".