• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance June 29, 2022
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Climate Action / "Blockadia"

Tech Companies Decarbonize Their Operations, But Still Sign Lucrative Deals with Big Oil

October 6, 2019
Reading time: 2 minutes

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_CES_2009.jpg

Wikipedia

1
SHARES
 

Big tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft may be taking promising steps to cut their own greenhouse gas emissions. But they’re a lot farther from severing ties with the fossil companies that take advantage of their products and services, The Associated Press reports.

“Microsoft and other tech giants have been competing with one another to strike lucrative partnerships with ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP ,and other energy firms, in many cases supplying them not just with remote data storage but also artificial intelligence tools for pinpointing better drilling spots or speeding up refinery production,” AP says. The oil and gas industry spends about US$20 billion per year on cloud services, representing about 10% of the global cloud market. And while “it’s not yet clear whether the extraction industry is getting its money’s worth, experts remain bullish about the application of advanced technology to oil and gas exploration.”

That’s a big enough concern for some tech employees that it came up at a September 12 all-staff meeting at Microsoft, where “an employee asked CEO Satya Nadella if it was ethical for the company to be selling its cloud computing services to fossil fuel companies,” AP writes, citing two other employees who were in the room. “Such partnerships, the worker told Nadella, were accelerating the oil companies’ greenhouse gas emissions.” Nadella apparently replied by highlighting Microsoft’s own internal sustainability programs and pointing to fossil companies’ investments in more sustainable energy production methods.

“There’s no fossil fuel CEO who sits there and says, ‘You know, I’m just gonna deny climate change,'” Nadella said, according to an unnamed staffer’s transcript of his remarks. “If anything, they’re all saying, ‘Let us have, in fact, the regulation, the pricing mechanisms that get us to this future.'”

Then, days before the September 20 and 27 #ClimateStrike marches, Microsoft announced a big, new cloud computing deal with colossal fossil Chevron and oilfield services giant Schlumberger. The timing “angered some environmentally-minded Microsoft workers and caught the attention of outsiders,” AP says.

“It is unconscionable that amid global climate protests, tech giants like Microsoft are announcing major partnerships with Big Oil,” tweeted Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, (I-VT). “We must hold them accountable, demand they break ties with the fossil fuel industry, and move rapidly to sustainable energy.”

A small group of Microsoft employees echoed that call with a protest outside company headquarters. The staffers said they’d been “made complicit” by the company’s role in driving climate change, adding that “Microsoft makes millions of dollars in profits by helping fossil fuel companies extract more oil.”

Vivek Chidambaram, a managing director of Accenture’s energy consultancy, noted that artificial intelligence can also be put to productive uses, like helping companies spot climate-busting methane leaks from wells and pipelines. “Data can be used in many ways,” he told AP. “It’s about how it’s being used.”



in Climate Action / "Blockadia", Community Climate Finance, Oil & Gas, Supply Chains & Consumption, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Keith Hirsche
Jobs & Training

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
346
London Eye UK England
Cities & Communities

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
103
Number 10/flickr
International Agencies & Studies

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
116

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
346
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

June 29, 2022
131
David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1.2k
Number 10/flickr

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
116
London Eye UK England

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
103
Danielle Scott/flickr

Advocate Urges Ottawa to Intervene Before Ontario Builds Highway 413

June 29, 2022
87

Recent Posts

AJEL / Pixabay

Windfall Tax on Food, Fossil, Pharma Giants Would Raise $490B to Solve ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis: Oxfam

June 29, 2022
48
futureatlas.com/flickr

Ottawa Demands Deeper Fuel Emissions Cuts, Offers Fossils a Double-Dip on Tax Breaks

June 29, 2022
72
Province of B.C./flickr

Comox Joins Municipalities Seeking Ban on New Gas Stations

June 29, 2022
58
/Piqsels

Refocus Agriculture Spending to Cut Emissions, Boost Productivity, OECD Urges Governments

June 29, 2022
25
Jimmy Emerson, DVM/flickr

Public Vigilance Key to Protecting Greenbelts for Climate Resilience, Report Finds

June 29, 2022
29
Miguel V/Wikimedia Commons

Forests Fall Short of Full Carbon Storage Potential, Study Finds

June 29, 2022
46
Next Post
Arnoldius/Wikimedia Commons

Climate Hawks See No Gain in German Utility RWE’s Plan for 2040 Coal Phaseout

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}