Microsoft's carbon emissions surged 25 percent in 2025, reaching 34 million metric tons, according to its latest sustainability report. The increase was "driven primarily by the expansion of our datacenter infrastructure," the company said, along with a decision last February to stop buying certain renewable energy certificates.
The Verge reports that this rise threatens the tech giant's publicly stated ambition to become carbon negative by 2030. Achieving that target would require removing more carbon than the firm emits each year, a challenge now magnified by the expanding cloud and AI infrastructure.
The 34-million-ton figure is described as occurring "without select interventions," though the report does not specify what those interventions entail. Microsoft's energy consumption has climbed sharply as it races to build out datacenters for services like Azure and its Copilot AI assistant.
Datacenter expansion shows no signs of slowing, meaning emissions could climb further in the near term. Microsoft continues to invest in carbon removal projects and clean energy contracts, but those efforts have not yet offset the growth in its operational footprint.
Critics argue that voluntary targets lack enforceability. The company's path to net-negative emissions remains unclear absent binding regulation or a fundamental shift in its infrastructure strategy.