Winning AI more important than saving climate • The Register

You would think that the government official responsible for safeguarding the US’ natural resources would be opposed to abandoning climate change mitigation pledges in favor of firing up fossil fuels to power AI development. 

This is the Trump administration, however, so you’d be wrong. 

Speaking at a natural gas industry event in Italy this week, US Interior Secretary and former software exec Doug Burgum said that the true existential threat facing the world is America losing the AI arms race. Sure, climate change and its effect on future generations worry him, but “that’s all solvable,” Burgum said. 

“Yes, I’m worried about the future,” said Burgum, who sold the accounting software company Great Plains to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001, well before starting his political career. As he put it, “The real existential threat right now is not a degree of climate change. It’s the fact that we could lose the arms race if we don’t have enough power.”

Waiting for renewables, as Burgum sees it, isn’t an option. 

“We’ve spent $5 trillion as a planet pursuing the wind-solar-battery approach,” Burgum said while deferring to US Energy Secretary Chris Wright for evidence of that $5T figure. “It has not benefited [us], it’s just raised the cost of prices for everyone.

What’s going to save the planet is winning the AI arms race

“People say yeah, we might be saving the planet from one degree of climate change in the year 2100. What’s going to save the planet is winning the AI arms race,” the Interior Secretary continued. “We need power to do that and we need it right now.” 

Apologies to future Burgums, but their patriarch is more worried about “the humans that are on the planet today,” and he’s willing to dump money into natural gas turbines for datacenters to ensure all the capital tied to AI belongs to the US. 

One degree of warming sure would be nice

Take a look at authoritative assessments of the state of anthropogenic climate change, and you’ll find a common refrain: We’re well past the one degree (Celsius) of warming threshold, and we’re well on course to the 1.5°C limit beyond which the Earth will be plunged into climate chaos. 

According to recent projections, the world is still on course for roughly 2.7°C to 3°C of warming by 2100 under current policies – a trajectory that rising energy demand from AI and datacenters is expected to worsen, not the one degree that Burgum expressed concern over.

Despite the need to rein in climate change with renewable energy, the Trump administration has done everything it can to eliminate renewable energy projects, and the tech industry seems all too happy to get in line behind a renewed right to burn fossil fuels to power its AI ambitions. 

Google, for example, recently removed references to its net-zero pledge on parts of its website after reporting in 2024 that its emissions had risen by 48 percent since 2019, due in large part to AI. Meta, for all its talk of investing in green energy, announced last December that its largest-ever datacenter was going to be powered by natural gas turbines. Elon Musk’s xAI has likewise taken heat for belching noxious fumes into Memphis, Tennessee neighborhoods with its own datacenter-adjacent natural gas plant.

We sent multiple messages to the Department of the Interior to ask questions about Burgum’s comments, but didn’t receive a response. That said, there’s a good chance we know what the Department’s comments would be based on what it told US politics publication Politico’s environmental news subsidiary when they asked about Burgum’s love of natural gas: In so many words, piss off.

“Clearly you have not been paying attention to the energy and or AI conversation that is happening in this country with your sensational and ill-informed questions,” an Interior Department spokesperson told E&E News, adding that beating China was more important than holding out for renewable energy.

“If you can’t understand the importance of America winning the AI arms race you probably shouldn’t be reporting on this issue,” the spokesperson said. ®