A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and independent expert Ketan Joshi reveals how the frenzied rollout of AI data centres in Australia is set to derail the renewable energy transition, entrench gas and turbocharge climate pollution, prompting calls for an urgent moratorium on data centre approvals until appropriate guardrails are in place.

The frenzied rollout of AI data centres in Australia is rushing through massive new projects, which will derail Australia’s energy transition unless the government urgently intervenes.

Key findings

• The frenzied rollout of AI data centres in Australia is rushing through massive new projects, which will derail Australia’s energy transition unless the government urgently intervenes. Our conservative assumptions mean this impact is understated, in this analysis.
• Australia’s biggest proposed data centre, the 1GW Mamre Road Data Centre Campus in Western Sydney, will generate peak annual grid emissions equivalent to that produced by 560,000 petrol cars for a year or all domestic flights within NSW in 2023.

• Data centres already fail to cover their own emissions with new renewables and their rollout will dramatically hold back Australia’s energy transition.
• No data centre operator analysed in this report adequately proves their claim of driving Australia’s renewable energy growth. Claims they are doing this through truly “additional” new power purchasing agreements for renewable energy are unsubstantiated. 
• There are early signs of a data centre-fuelled gas boom in Australia, which will come with massive, nationally significant climate costs. For example, the Tamboran proposal for the Northern Territory would effectively double the state’s emissions. In NSW, Cloud Carrier’s proposed gas-fired project would wipe out NSW’s entire projected 2028 emissions cuts.

• Even if only 1 in 4 new Australian data centres were powered by new on-site gas, it would result in 2.8x higher total emissions compared to using grid power.
• New analysis shows that on-site gas for data centres globally could fuel emissions that exceed Brazil’s total power grid emissions by 2030.
• Fossil fuel corporations are quietly joining the data centre lobby group as members, and sponsoring and attending technology industry conferences. The two industries are reinforcing each other’s talking points and PR spin.

• Data centre operators do not disclose the customers of an individual facility, the purpose of the computations performed there,  or site-specific energy consumption, despite the industry’s defense of its ‘critical infrastructure’ status or claims of transparency.  It is a matter of public record that AI is being used for abuse, war and other human rights violations.
• Data centres can be ‘right sized’ through community ownership schemes, well-deployed AI software and strict moratoria to allow for democratic governance of this industry.

This report recommends:

• An urgent moratorium on data centre development until safeguards are legislated
• Binding, legislated standards for AI development, including substantiated claims of additional renewable energy
• Full disclosure of services delivered, emissions, finances and energy use, per project
• Full assessment of compliance with human rights frameworks

Lead author: Ketan Joshi is an independent climate, environment and sustainability expert. He was the lead author on “The AI Climate Hoax”, published with several corporate accountability and environmental groups in 2026, and previously wrote “Windfall: Unlocking a Fossil Free Future” with the University of New South Wales Press. He worked for eight years in Australia’s renewable energy sector (corporate and government), and has worked with European NGOs working on climate communications and corporate accountability.