17 February 2026

The AI climate hoax: behind the curtain of how big tech greenwashes impacts

Beyond Fossil Fuels, together with external allies, including  Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), Friends of the Earth U.S., Green Screen Coalition, Green Web Foundation, and Stand.earth, commissioned a report to climate and energy analyst Ketan Joshi to debunk the narrative that Big Tech has been promoting around Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) supposed climate benefit claims. 

The analysis “The AI climate hoax: behind the curtain of how big tech greenwashes impacts” finds that claims about “AI sustainability” blur the differences between generative AI – which carries major environmental costs, with the much lower energy and environmental footprint of “traditional” AI, used for instance for machine learning to forecast wind patterns. This deceptive bait-and-switch is a new form of greenwashing used by the tech industry.

We hope this puts a pin in wild overstatements claiming machine learning can make global emissions plummet at a gigatonne scale; the whole discourse needs to be brought back to reality.