European Groups Plan Datacentre Protests in 15 Countries

Prepared with generous backing from

Datacentres are becoming a street issue in Europe. More than 100 groups plan two days of protests in 15 countries to demand a halt to the largest projects.

Two days, many locations

The events, called "Stop Dirty Data Centres", are set for Friday and Saturday. Organisers cite environmental and social costs that "we can no longer afford" and want a moratorium on large projects.

The programme is varied. There is a protest outside the Polish parliament in Warsaw and a march in Dublin. Demonstrators will gather outside a Microsoft datacentre in Denmark. Near the site of a planned datacentre in Amsterdam there will be a teach-in, and in the Brick Lane area of east London, where a development has met local opposition, another event. Organisers expect anything from a handful of people at some events to several hundred at the larger ones, such as Brick Lane and Dublin.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Foxglove, a London-based campaign for a fairer tech future, are among the backers. Campaign coordinator Owen Espley said communities in the US and Europe are sending a similar message, and that the American midterm results reflect concerns shared on both sides of the Atlantic.

The environmental argument

The Guardian notes that datacentres have become a lightning rod for concern over AI. In this week's US midterms, datacentre opponents did well for the Democrats, the paper says.

Germany's Öko-Institut projects that by 2030 AI datacentres will emit six times as much carbon dioxide as in 2023. In the UK, energy use by AI datacentres could cause emissions of up to 123m tonnes of CO2 over the next 10 years, about as much as 2.7 million people generate.

The grid is a pressure point as well. The UK has 315 datacentres queueing to connect, representing 73 gigawatts of demand against a national peak of 45GW. About 250 projects worldwide above 100 megawatts, each equal to roughly 300,000 homes, were announced between 2021 and 2024, with North American schemes dominating.

The other side

The campaign also lists social effects: chatbots and mental health, the threat of AI eliminating jobs, and the priority datacentres get over housing. The tech industry replies that datacentres bring jobs while they are built and run, and help the economy grow by making AI development and use possible.

Source: The Guardian