Hi Watchers!
This month brings the report from The Guardian that greenhouse gas emissions from the big tech companies’ owned data centers are 662% higher than reported.
This problem is down to renewable energy credits (RECs). RECs emerged as a way to fund the construction of new renewables generation plants.
But claiming that the electrical power of an Arizona solar plant cancels out the emissions from an equal amount of power from the grid in, say, Missouri, does not create a reduction in the world’s emissions. And in many cases the plant was going to be built anyway, further reducing the climate benefit of the REC purchase.
Do you think the Greenhouse Gas Account Protocol should be stricter — to discount or eliminate the accounting credits from RECs?