‘Radical Pivot’ Has Google Ditching Renewables, Spouting Climate Denial

Tech behemoth Google/Alphabet is defying market fundamentals with a “radical pivot” from renewable energy back to fossil fuels and its growing embrace of climate change denial, Climate & Capital Media founder and CEO Peter McKillop writes in his weekend letter.

“Until recently, Google was considered one of the world’s most ambitious corporations [though not without its critics—Ed.] when it came to decarbonization,” McKillop writes. “Its 2024 climate report lauded a 12% cut in data centre emissions, 66% carbon-free operations across facilities, and contracts for more than 8 gigawatts of new clean energy. “

But then, “the AI revolution arrived. Power demand surged. Data centres now consume nearly 2% of U.S. electricity demand. And by 2030, AI-driven demand could triple grid consumption.”

Tech companies Meta and Microsoft are still “all-in on solar,” McKIllop says. But Google, under the relatively new leadership of President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat, “has begun a radical pivot away from renewables toward ‘reliable’ fossil fuels and nuclear. Last week, in a hail‑fellow‑well‑met moment fit for a Wall Street boardroom circa 2006, Porat praised Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s attack on the ‘climate extremist agenda’, calling it ‘fantastic’. Behind closed doors, Google lobbyists are also now pressing for looser fossil fuel restrictions, expanded coal use, and delays in state timelines for renewable mandates.”

It isn’t the first time that Porat is “on the wrong side of a high‑stakes bet,” McKillop writes, citing her role at the Morgan Stanley investment house in the 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown in the United States.

“Porat’s go-fossil argument seems reasonable, loaded with the soothing language of ‘reliability’, ‘pragmatism’, or ‘energy security’,” he says. “But as any sharp investor knows, like subprime, it’s a punt. That might play well in this White House. But it won’t play well in real-world markets, and may prove to be as successful for Google as Morgan Stanley’s bet on mortgages almost two decades ago.”

The problem with Porat’s strategy is that, “in a historic role reversal, solar, wind, storage, and other renewables, not fossil fuels, are the cheapest forms of industrial power,” McKillop adds. And “all this should give investors an eerie sense of déjà vu. The biggest financial lesson of the 2008 crisis was not about mortgages or CDOs. It was about the cost of ignoring market fundamentals. The same is true today, except fossil fuels—not mortgages—are today’s subprime.”