The sleek panel entitled “Confronting the data center energy crisis” at New York Climate Week was in full swing, with tech executives painting a rosy vision of an AI-powered, sustainable future. Then, the polished presentation was interrupted when Josh Parker, head of sustainability at NVIDIA, was expressing how much NVIDIA cares about climate change. A Greenpeace activist called out to him: “If you really care, why don’t you focus on decarbonisation? If you really care, you should do more!”, holding a banner that read, “STOP GREENWASHING.”

Interestingly, besides the Greenpeace activist, three other disruptions occurred during this 35-minute discussion, with protestors calling on this company to stop the data centre boom accelerating the climate crisis and enabling warfare. As NVIDIA positions itself as the savior of the modern tech world, and Big Tech pushes Artificial Intelligence as the ultimate solution to climate change, there is an invisible elephant in the room: the dirty reality of AI itself.

The “unstoppable” NVIDIA

NVIDIA has been dominating the news headlines lately, sitting firmly at the center of the global AI frenzy. That prominence was on full display at the ALL-IN Summit a few days ago, a major gathering of tech leaders and investors. There, CEO Jensen Huang once again championed the rapid expansion of AI and the infrastructure powering it.

What we know about NVIDIA is that it is the most dominant chip design company in the world. Beyond cornering the GPU market, it provides the software, cloud services and infrastructure that power AI development—what CEO Jensen Huang calls “AI factories.” To mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars for AI expansion, NVIDIA is even acting as a kind of central bank for the industry, financing its customers and partnering with major investment firms, which it calls an investment of “ecosystem”.

Despite its massive expansion, NVIDIA has managed to cultivate a relatively innocent image, appearing less harmful than Big Tech peers like Meta and Amazon Web Service (AWS). That is primarily because, as a hardware company, NVIDIA lacked a public-facing presence, and has less direct contact with retail customers. Additionally, the company has strategically played the “good guy” in the industry, heralding narratives like “AI is a climate solution” to build and maintain a positive public perception.

But this is precisely why NVIDIA’s power is so dangerous, and why the company must face far greater scrutiny. With its immense market power and cash flow, NVIDIA acts as an invisible hand, exerting enormous influence over how, where and how rapidly the AI industry expands.

The dirty reality behind the AI gold rush

AI does not exist in some weightless, invisible “cloud.” Behind every content generated, rows of servers and chips are running at high speed inside data centers, consuming electricity, generating heat and relying on cooling systems, some of which also use vast amounts of water. 

And this is only one part of AI’s environmental footprint. Long before these machines are switched on, extracting raw materials, and manufacturing chips and servers, have already generated substantial greenhouse gas emissions. 

NVIDIA designs its chips but, as a “fabless” company, relies on outsourced manufacturers in East Asia: Taiwan handles over 90% of advanced chips, while South Korea produces over 60% of memory chips. The massive manufacturing has already generated substantial greenhouse gas emissions. According to a recent briefing from lead author Ketan Joshi, Greenpeace International and a consortium of civil society groups[1], NVIDIA’s disclosed Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions[2], largely from upstream manufacturing, have risen by 725% since 2020. 

This US-based company’s own data exposes a critical blind spot: its sustainability efforts appear to be primarily confined to its own facilities and offices. While the company boasts a 100% renewable energy target, this is estimated to cover less than 1% of its total emissions, effectively obscuring the massive environmental impact of its supply chain elsewhere.

Beyond the emissions generated by its upstream supply chain, the briefing estimates that the undisclosed downstream emissions from the use of NVIDIA’s sold chips could actually be nearly twice as high as those currently estimated upstream emissions. Yet NVIDIA has failed to provide a credible answer to this other side of its climate footprint. The company still does not disclose its absolute use-phase emissions, and its board recommended that shareholders reject a proposal calling for more comprehensive downstream disclosure.

How NVIDIA is playing around with greenwashing tricks

Based on an analysis of NVIDIA’s public statements and promotional materials, the same briefing finds that the company repeatedly presents AI as a climate solution, even as it helps drive the rapid expansion of energy-intensive AI infrastructure.

The briefing identifies three central narratives in NVIDIA’s climate messaging.

1. “AI will solve climate change”

NVIDIA argues that AI can improve energy efficiency, optimize power systems, accelerate climate innovation and ultimately be a “net benefit” for climate.

But many of these promised benefits remain hypothetical or weakly supported. Some are also disproportionately focused on narrow applications of traditional AI, rather than the energy-intensive generative AI responsible for much of today’s infrastructure growth.

By presenting potential climate benefits as likely, NVIDIA distracts attention from a more immediate reality: manufacturing and operating AI infrastructure is already consuming vast amounts of energy and generating significant emissions.

2. “Flexible data centres will help the grid”

Through initiatives such as its partnership with Emerald AI and Google, NVIDIA portrays flexible data centres as “shock absorbers” for the power grid. The idea is that data centres can temporarily reduce or shift their electricity use during periods of high demand, helping ease grid pressure and integrate more renewable energy.

However, flexible data centres can be useful, but its benefits are limited. It generally applies only during a small number of peak-stress hours and does not remove the enormous, around-the-clock electricity demand created by new data centres.

Research cited in the briefing suggests that demand response may cover less than 1% of the year in some high-growth scenarios. In certain electricity markets, it could even increase emissions if data centres shift their consumption toward hours when cheaper fossil-fuelled power is available.

In other words, making data centres slightly more flexible does not cancel out the impact of adding massive new loads to the grid.

3. “More efficient chips mean more sustainable AI”

NVIDIA frequently highlights improvements in “performance per watt,” more efficient AI infrastructure and the efficiency advantages of newer systems such as Blackwell[3].

But efficiency per computation is not the same as lower overall energy consumption.

As AI becomes cheaper and more capable, companies deploy it more widely and use it more intensively. This rebound effect (often called the Jevons paradox) can outweigh the energy savings achieved by each individual efficiency improvement.

The briefing finds that despite dramatic improvements in chip efficiency, the total power capacity of NVIDIA chips sold has continued to grow. The result is that absolute electricity consumption and associated emissions are still rising.

The pattern across all three narratives is clear: NVIDIA spotlights potential climate benefits, short-term grid flexibility and relative efficiency gains, while diverting attention from the absolute growth of AI’s energy demand and emissions. In doing so, climate action becomes a justification for expanding AI infrastructure, rather than a meaningful constraint on how that infrastructure is built and powered.

What meaningful climate action would actually look like

Well, there is only one real answer: direct emissions reduction at source. Anything less is greenwashing.

If NVIDIA wants to demonstrate genuine climate leadership, it cannot shirk its responsibility by claiming that it is merely a “fabless” company and that the emissions happen outside its business. We all know that is not how it should be done.

A few days ago, Jensen Huang once again made his attitude toward concerns about AI’s impacts clear. NVIDIA will stand firmly on the side of expansion, leveraging every available resource to accelerate its position in the AI race. Huang appears to believe that the market will eventually solve these problems by itself.

However, it is difficult to believe that such a successful businessman could be so naive (or should we call it complacent?). His comments send a worrying signal: NVIDIA intends to remain “unstoppable,” even if that means throwing more fuel on fires burning in other people’s homes.

AI infrastructure is already creating serious problems around the world. We see communities resisting data centre expansion in the United States and all over the globe. In East Asia, the manufacturing of AI chips is contributing to air pollution and water stress. People living with these impacts are no longer waiting for promises about what AI might achieve someday. They are waiting for meaningful action now.

Greenpeace International demands that NVIDIA moves towards real public good by taking the initial step of investing substantially in new and additional renewable energy worldwide. We also call on the company to expand its 100% renewable energy target beyond its own corporate operations to cover its entire manufacturing supply chain by 2030, including key production regions such as Taiwan and elsewhere in East Asia. Besides, NVIDIA must disclose a comprehensive Scope 3 emissions including use of sold chips in data centres.

This is not a big ask. It is the bare minimum that one of the greatest architects – and beneficiaries – of the AI frenzy CAN and MUST do.

Avex Li is Project lead for AI supply chain campaign in Greenpeace East Asia.

Notes:

[1] The briefing, written by analyst and lead author Ketan Joshi and a consortium of civil society groups, including Greenpeace International, Beyond Fossil Fuels, Friends of the Earth, Green Screen Coalition, Stand.Earth, Kairos Fellowship, and Climate Action Against Disinformation, is the first analysis of greenwashing-style statements commonly used by NVIDIA.

[2] Scope 3 emissions (Category 1-8) relate to measured greenhouse gas impacts outside the formal boundaries of the company’s activities, such as the emissions from manufacturing raw materials used in manufacturing, or the use of products sold by a company.

[3] Blackwell is a new generation of NVIDIA’s AI architecture, which NVIDIA claimed that “delivers the highest performance per watt to maximize revenue and the lowest token cost to maximize profit margins.” 

A protest supporting activists with a giant eye in Spain, documenting fires in Indonesia, and New York Climate Week, here are a few of our favourite images from Greenpeace work around the world this week.

Spain – Greenpeace Spain displays a 530 m² eye at the Hemisfèric in Valencia with the message “The world is watching” in support of the activists charged in the Sagunto case. More than 40 Greenpeace activists are taking part in this peaceful protest in solidarity with their 11 colleagues charged for another action in 2021 against a gas tanker in the port of Sagunto.

The trial begins this Wednesday at the Ciudad de la Justicia in Valencia: the prosecution is seeking five years in prison for each activist, one of the harshest sentences ever sought in Europe.

Brazil – A group of activists from Greenpeace Brazil built a House of Cards in front of the National Congress in Brasília to draw attention to the importance of the Senate vote for the 2026 Elections. The activity was part of the “Desembaralho do Senado” (Untangling the Senate Mess) project, from the #YourVoteMatters campaign.

Indonesia- Ali, a member of Greenpeace Indonesia’s Fire Prevention Team, holds a banner reading “Forest Not Fires” in the PT Bintang Harapan Palma (BHP) concession area in Ogan Komering Ilir, South Sumatra, Indonesia.

The fires have contributed to recurring haze that affects communities in Palembang and Ogan Komering Ilir surrounding areas, with vulnerable groups such as children and older people facing increased risks of respiratory illnesses, including acute respiratory infections (ARI). Adding further challenges to communities’ daily lives and health.

New Zealand/Aotearoa – Thousands of New Zealanders got out in the streets on Saturday September 19th, to protest the controversial ‘Conservation Amendment Bill’, which would allow the exploitation of conservation land.

United States – To kick off Climate Week and UNGA, Greenpeace delivered a massive projection right on their doorstep at the AT&T building and Manhattan Bridge in New York City calling out the billionaire and autocrats of the world. The message is loud and clear: Defend your Freedoms + Defend your Rights = Defend the Planet. RESIST!

United States – A Greenpeace digital billboard truck circles The New York Times building during Climate Forward, calling out TMC CEO Gerard Barron’s ties to the Trump administration and his bid to sell deep sea mining as a climate solution. TMC is seeking to bypass the International Seabed Authority and fast-track U.S. permits through the Trump administration, even though deep sea mining has not been proven necessary or safe.

United States – Greenpeace USA activists brought “AI bubbles” to Wall Street to name the companies responsible for investing in hyperscale data centers across the country, which threaten communities, inflate financial markets, and consume massive quantities of gas – projected to add the greatest increase in carbon pollution in coming years.

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, please visit our Media Library.

New York, United States – The High-Level Event on Climate Action and the Just Transition – a final initiative of outgoing Secretary-General Guterres who has made climate a key element of his legacy – is a crucial moment to consolidate a response to the global climate and energy crises. 

Ahead of the annual UN climate conference COP31 in Türkiye and the biennial UN biodiversity conference COP17 in Armenia, Greenpeace is calling for governments to accelerate action towards the commitments agreed at COP28 in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels and to end forest destruction by 2030. 

Jasper Inventor, Deputy Programme Director, Greenpeace International said: “We are overshooting our climate limits while fossil fuel companies are overflowing with profits. As those most responsible for the climate crisis continue to cash in, this year’s repeated disasters pose a clear question: will politicians finally end the industry’s destruction? Talk is cheap, but life is priceless and our climate stability is disintegrating the longer we delay.”

“The answer is not found in discord or division, but urgent collective action for our mutual benefit. Governments must develop and implement national roadmaps that accelerate a fast, fair and funded just transition into renewable energy and ensure we hold fossil fuel polluters and forest destroyers to account for the destruction they’ve caused.”

Greenpeace is urging leaders to embark on a robust multilateral response to the escalating climate threat after the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned earlier in September the world had failed to limit warming to the Paris Agreement 1.5°C threshold as it outlined an “overshoot, peak and decline” pathway.  

An Lambrechts, Biodiversity Policy Expert, Greenpeace International said: “The devastating wildfires this year must finally compel us to act with the urgency we need to protect high integrity forests and end forest destruction by 2030, as agreed at COP28 and as part of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.”

“These 2030 targets are not only aspirational, they represent a hard climate and biodiversity boundary. But as forest and ecosystem loss continue on our rapidly heating planet, these wildfires risk becoming a testament to our collective failure to act.”

“The Brazil COP30 Presidency’s Forest Roadmap creates the momentum for solutions to be put in place. What’s required is clear government action and deliverables to end and reverse forest destruction by 2030 . A future world of 1.5°C hinges on defending forests now and in the future.”

Rebecca Newsom, Global Political Lead, Greenpeace International said: “We are united with one simple demand: make the wealthiest polluters pay for the damage they cause. People are fed up with paying for a crisis they didn’t create, hit by fossilflation at the pump, the checkout, on insurance and in the climate damage communities are confronted with.”

“Fossil fuel profits are soaring off the back of the war on Iran. Permanently increasing taxes on them and shifting fiscal incentives towards renewables should be obvious for any government serious about a just transition and ensuring Global South countries get the public international climate finance they’re owed. The money is there, it just needs to be put into the right hands.”

ENDS

Photo and video available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

Notes:

Enough is enough: over 2 million petition signatures at UNGA to Make Polluters Pay

Contacts:

Aaron Gray-Block, Greenpeace International, Climate Politics Communications Manager, aaron.gray-block@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

Valencia, Spain – The trial of 11 Greenpeace activists began today in Valencia with Spain’s Public Prosecutor seeking one of the harshest punishments ever in Europe for peaceful environmental protest. The authorities’ attempt to sentence these activists to five years in prison for a 2021 non-violent protest is part of a global trend of intensifying attempts to silence activism and shrink civic space.

In October 2021, the 11 activists blocked a tanker carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US for 12 hours at Valencia’s Port of Sagunto, calling for an immediate transition to renewable energy and warning against dependence on foreign gas imports.[1] 

Gina Romero, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, said: “The attempt to punish the Sagunto activists for exercising their rights is not an isolated incident. Across Europe and beyond, I am seeing peaceful environmental defenders met with disproportionate criminal charges, legal abuse, and prison sentences that bear no relation to the nature of their actions. History shows that civil disobedience and peaceful protest do not threaten the rule of law, rather, they are an essential driver of progress for democratic freedoms and rights. States have an obligation to protect, not punish, those who exercise them.”

The case has drawn concern from Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, who wrote to the Spanish government that he is “particularly troubled by the significant criminal sentences sought by the prosecution.”[2]  Forst and Amnesty International have announced they will attend the trial as observers. Ahead of the trial, Greenpeace Spain activists unveiled a giant, 530 square metre eye on the roof of Valencia’s Hemisfèric building with banners that read “The world is watching” and “Activism is not a crime.” 

Francisco del Pozo, one of the accused Greenpeace activists, said: “Being a climate activist in Spain today means standing up to defeatism: no more doing nothing while the climate collapses amid unstoppable wildfires, devastating floods, and extreme heat and drought. It also means bearing the brunt of a brutal backlash from the powerful, living for years with the anxiety of unjust charges and the constant threat of disproportionate prison sentences. I hope this trial will deliver rulings that favour peaceful activism, which is only going to become more necessary.”

What makes the disproportionate penalty requested by the prosecution even more unprecedented is that the maximum sentence for the alleged offense of public disorder was three and a half years in 2021, when the action took place. It was only raised to five years by a later reform, which prosecutors are applying retroactively.

Inés Díez, Legal Department Head for Greenpeace Spain, said: “International human rights law requires states to respect and protect the right to take part in peaceful civil disobedience, regardless of whether it takes place in open or closed public or private spaces. The conduct of the Sagunto 11 falls squarely within that scope. The Greenpeace activists should never have been subjected to a criminal process over action protected by these rights. No activist should have to put their life on hold for five years waiting for a court to decide their future.”

ENDS

Photos and videos are available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

Notes:

[1] Greenpeace Spain carried out the action with activists of 18 different nationalities, from onboard the ship MY Esperanza. No one was injured, and communication with maritime and port authorities remained peaceful and respectful throughout. Fines of 160,000 euros related to the action have already been imposed by the Spanish government.

[2] Forst’s Letter of Allegation and the Spanish government’s reply can be found on the Special Rapporteur’s website (under complaint ACSR/C/2026/113 (Spain)).

Contacts: 

Lindsay Bigda, Deputy Communications Lead, Civic Resistance & Freedoms, Greenpeace International, +1 207-385-7924 (Americas), lbigda@greenpeace.org 

Virginia Rabal, Communications Manager, Greenpeace Spain, +91 444 14 00 (EMEA), prensa.es@greenpeace.org 

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org