As AI data centers drive up emissions and power demand, Big Tech is racing to lock in “durable” carbon removal credits—sending prices soaring, squeezing other buyers, and quietly reshaping the entire carbon market.
The climate story of AI has mostly been told in terms of electricity and water: how much power a single data center needs, or how many Olympic swimming pools of cooling water a hyperscale campus might consume.
But at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, another part of the story burst into view: the way that AI’s carbon footprint is colliding with a tiny,
