Data Centers Face Global Wave of Climate Lawsuits
Isabella Kaminski
A new London School of Economics report shows a surge in climate lawsuits targeting data centers worldwide, from Chile to Ireland to the US. Cases challenge energy sourcing, water use, and air pollution, often achieving halts or transparency improvements without court rulings. These actions seek to shift the sector toward renewable energy rather than block growth.
According to the latest annual report on climate litigation from the London School of Economics (LSE), a wave of environmental lawsuits involving data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) is rising worldwide, from Chile to Ireland.
Analyzing about 3,600 climate-related cases filed since 2015, the LSE report points to an increasing number of suits challenging the energy sources, water consumption, and air pollution of data centers—all of which have climate impacts.
One of the first such cases was filed in 2020 in Chile's capital Santiago, where Google planned to build a large data center in the Cerrillos district. A group of residents and the local council challenged the permits granted to the tech giant, expressing concerns about the project's impact on the city's water supply, already strained by climate change. The lawsuit succeeded in halting the Cerrillos project on the grounds that its climate effects had not been properly considered.
The LSE report identifies Ireland as a "hotspot" for litigation against data centers. The Irish government wants to expand the sector, even though data centers already consume more than one-fifth of the nation's electricity. In December, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) announced that "large energy users" such as data centers would be allowed to run on fossil fuels for the next six years, after which they must use at least 80% renewable energy. However, Friends of the Irish Environment, Friends of the Earth Ireland, and ClientEarth are seeking a judicial review of this decision, arguing that it will lock Ireland into fossil gas dependence for years to come.
In the United States, a wave of legal pushback is also growing. In California, the city of Pittsburg forced a data center to use renewable energy and recycled water to cool its servers. Other ongoing lawsuits in Georgia and Pennsylvania challenge state regulators for approving new fossil fuel infrastructure linked to data centers. A case in Mississippi contends that Elon Musk's xAI violated the Clean Air Act by operating mobile methane generators without necessary permits, posing serious public health risks to nearby Black and minority communities.
In the UK, activists sued the government over its decision to push ahead with a "hyperscale" data center in Buckinghamshire. The nonprofit tech-justice group Foxglove and the environmental charity Global Action Plan argued the decision ignored the project's electricity and water needs and failed to properly assess its climate impacts. The government later acknowledged procedural flaws, and the suit was withdrawn.
The LSE report concludes that cases in both the US and UK show how litigation "can drive changes in decision-making related to climate even without a positive ruling." It can improve transparency, as in the Buckinghamshire data center case, where the full scale of the environmental impact "would not have come to light."
Co-author of the report, Associate Professor Joana Setzer of LSE, said these lawsuits are not necessarily about blocking development but about avoiding deeper reliance on fossil fuels: "This is an opportunity for these energy-intensive developments to be powered by renewable energy at a time when it’s possible."
