Big Tech’s water grab

The statement highlights the conflict between the growing water demands of Big Tech data centres and the global crisis of water scarcity, noting that AI training is driving further demand. It criticizes the UN Pact for the Future for ignoring the water footprint of digitalization and suggests taxing Big Tech to fund equitable water management.

• Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are expanding their global data centre operations by 78 per cent, with demand further increased by the capacity needed to train artificial intelligence models such as ChatGPT.
• Global water availability is severely limited, with less than 1% of the Earth's freshwater accessible for human use, leaving over 2 billion people struggling to access clean water for basic needs.
• Climate change is worsening water scarcity through more frequent and severe droughts and unpredictable rainfall patterns, while nature's water-filtering wild areas are disappearing three times faster than forests.
• The UN Pact for the Future (September 2024) fails to address the water demands of digitalization and data centre cooling, despite pledging to prevent water scarcity and build drought resilience in Action 5(f).

APA

Rowley, S. (2025). Big Tech’s water grab. World Association for Christian Communication. https://waccglobal.org/big-techs-water-grab/

Chicago

Rowley, Saskia. Big Tech’s water grab. World Association for Christian Communication, 2025. https://waccglobal.org/big-techs-water-grab/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Rowley |first1=Saskia |title=Big Tech’s water grab |publisher=World Association for Christian Communication |date=22 April 2025 |url=https://waccglobal.org/big-techs-water-grab/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{rowley2025big, author = {Rowley, Saskia}, title = {{Big Tech’s water grab}}, publisher = {World Association for Christian Communication}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://waccglobal.org/big-techs-water-grab/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }