27 May 2026
Today in Parliament, Abigail spoke about Greenpeace's new report on data centres that are draining our country and wrecking our climate.
Abigail said:
(1) That this House notes the contents of the report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific, ‘Energy Vampires: the AI data centres draining Australia’ which found that:
(a) The frenzied rollout of AI data centres in Australia is rushing through massive new projects, which will derail Australia’s energy transition unless the government urgently intervenes,
(b) At its peak, Australia’s biggest proposed data centre, the 1GW Mamre Road Data Centre Campus in Western Sydney, will generate annual emissions equivalent to 560,000 petrol cars, or all domestic flights within NSW in 2023,
(c) Data centres already fail to cover their own emissions with new renewables and their rollout will dramatically hold back Australia’s energy transition. Data centres will not help the energy transition unless they build MORE new renewables than their new demand, a scenario not seen anywhere in the world. If they only cover SOME of their new demand, the effect is a worse outcome for the climate. Lobby group Data Centres Australia has opposed a suggested requirement for mandatory additional new renewable energy for 100% of their new energy demand,
(d) No data centre operator analysed in this report adequately proves their claim of driving Australia’s renewable energy growth. Claims they are doing this through truly “additional” new power purchasing agreements for renewable energy are unsubstantiated,
(e) There are early signs of a data centre-fuelled gas boom in Australia, which will come with massive, nationally significant climate costs. For example, the Tamboran proposal for the Northern Territory would effectively double the state’s emissions. In NSW, Cloud Carrier’s proposed gas-fired project would wipe out NSW’s entire projected 2028 emissions cuts,
(f) Even if only 1 in 4 new Australian data centres were powered by new on-site gas, it would result in 2.8x higher total emissions compared to using grid power,
(g) New analysis shows that on-site gas for data centres globally could fuel emissions that exceed Brazil’s total power grid emissions by 2030,
(h) Fossil fuel corporations are quietly joining the data centre lobby group as members, and sponsoring and attending technology industry conferences. The two industries are reinforcing each other’s talking points and PR spin. Data Centres Australia quietly added high-polluting gas companies to their membership in April 2026, and Fossil fuel corporations are sponsoring a major data centre conference, that will host a major gas company (Beach Energy). Australia’s largest fossil fuel conference featured a plenary session sponsored by Chevron and included the head of Data Centres Australia,
(i) Data centres operators do not disclose their customers or the use of the computing power they sell or their site-specific energy consumption, despite the industry’s defense of its ‘critical infrastructure’ status or claims of transparency. It is a matter of public record that AI is being used for abuse, war and other human rights violations, and
(j) Data centres can be ‘right sized’ through community ownership schemes, well-deployed AI software and strict moratoria to allow for democratic governance of this industry,
(2) That this House congratulates Greenpeace for this report and welcomes the recommendations, which include:
(a) An urgent moratorium on data centre development until safeguards are legislated,
(b) Binding, legislated standards for AI development, including substantiated claims of additional renewable energy,
(c) Full disclosure of services delivered, emissions, finances and energy use, per project, and
(d) Full assessment of compliance with human rights frameworks.
(3) That this House calls on the NSW Labor government, as well as the Federal Labor Government, to take a cold shower and cease their sycophantic pandering to the AI Data Centre lobby, and put the interests of the NSW public and climate at the forefront rather than rolling out the red carpet for climate destroying AI data centres.