Data centers as a new frontier for the climate movement

Why this matters

Data centers now consume vast and rapidly growing quantities of water, energy, and land. The AI boom is turbocharging this expansion, with tech companies racing to build infrastructure at a pace that is outstripping democratic oversight in communities across the world. Social Change Lab’s own RCT research found that the environmental costs of data centers were the AI-related issue most likely to move the public to take action – making this a uniquely powerful entry point for both the climate and AI safety movements.

What we found

A resistance movement around data centers is already well underway. Communities across the US, Europe, and beyond are pushing back against proposals through planning objections, local moratoriums, and direct action. The coalition forming around this issue is unusually broad: rural landowners concerned about water and noise, heritage campaigners opposing construction near historic sites, property-rights conservatives, and climate and digital rights activists are finding common cause. The paper grapples honestly with the harder questions too – including whether data centers could drive clean energy investment, what role AI plays in accelerating fossil fuel extraction, and how to build a coalition without demanding that everyone agrees on AI itself.

What it means for the movement

Data centers offer the climate movement a concrete, local, and visible target at a moment when the movement is searching for new energy and new allies. Because impacts are felt at community level – in water bills, electricity prices, noise, and landscape – the issue can mobilise people who would never identify as climate activists. The paper argues that the climate movement should engage strategically with this emerging resistance, providing research, communications support, and coalition infrastructure to help local campaigns connect and scale – while being thoughtful about the tensions and trade-offs involved.