Carlos Solis
Almost everything we do leaves an environmental mark — and that now includes our online behavior. What we eat, how we travel, and how we run our homes have long been blamed for climate change, and attention is increasingly turning to the energy and water demands of our digital lives.
The rise of highlighted how much power and cooling infrastructure the internet needs. For example, a report published in early 2026 estimated that global AI use — specifically the data centers that power it — emits as much annually as New York City. Another estimate says every 5–50 ChatGPT prompts consume about half a liter of water to cool servers. Advisors in the UK’s Government Digital Sustainability Alliance warned that AI data centers could threaten national and global water security.
AI Isn’t the Only Thing Harming the Environment
It’s hard to compare the footprints of different technologies because studies use different methods, and calculating the true cost of AI becomes more complex when you include the resources spent training each model. A simpler approach looks at how much data a given action uses in a single moment.
Analyst and tech writer Andy Mezli calculated that an average ChatGPT request produces about 0.28 g of CO2. He compared that amount to familiar actions: it equals about 35 seconds of video streaming, uploading nine photos to social media, or one minute of laptop use.
What Costs the Most Online
- Reading text uses far less energy than watching video, especially short‑form clips like those on TikTok.
- Text-based AI interactions consume much less data than text‑to‑video requests or AI video generation.
- Cloud gaming can be among the most energy-intensive online activities because it requires constant server processing.
Still, Greenly, a carbon-accounting firm, pointed out in 2025 that physical video games — the discs, packaging, logistics, and their eventual fate in landfills or incinerators — can collectively cause roughly 100 times more carbon pollution than streaming.
Online vs. Offline: What Really Matters for Emissions
Overall, offline life usually produces a much larger environmental footprint than our online habits. Greenly’s analysis showed that an annual Netflix subscription, at average viewing levels, generates about 17 kg of CO2 — roughly the same as driving a gasoline car for 60 miles (about 96 km).
A single economy flight from London to Berlin creates roughly 10 times more emissions per passenger than a year of streaming. And one sirloin steak can account for 20–30 kg of CO2 — more than a year of bingeing certain TV shows.
If your goal is to cut your carbon footprint, examine your shopping, diet, and travel choices first. Cutting screen time can help, but changes to what you buy, what you eat, and how you travel will usually have a bigger impact.
Based on reporting from BBC Science Focus.
