Datacentres Targeted in Mounting Climate Lawsuits: LSE
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- The London School of Economics review of about 3,600 climate lawsuits filed since 2015 found a growing share now target datacentres' energy sources, water consumption, and air pollution, with cases spanning the US, UK, Chile, and Ireland.
- Google's Cerrillos datacentre project in Santiago was halted after residents and the local council challenged permits in 2020 over climate impacts on the city's water supply, though Chile's wider datacentre expansion continues to drain drought-stricken wetlands.
- Ireland's Commission for the Regulation of Utilities said in December that large energy users like datacentres can run on fossil fuels for six years before switching to at least 80% renewables; Friends of the Irish Environment, Friends of the Earth Ireland, and ClientEarth are seeking judicial review, arguing the rule locks in fossil gas.
- Elon Musk's xAI faces a Clean Air Act lawsuit in Mississippi, brought by the NAACP, over portable methane gas generators operating without required permits near Black and minority communities; the US Department of Justice is trying to block the case.
- In California, Pittsburg must now require a datacentre to use renewable energy and recycled water, while ongoing litigation in Georgia and Pennsylvania targets state regulators' approval of fossil fuel infrastructure tied to datacentres.
- UK campaigners Foxglove and Global Action Plan sued over a hyperscale datacentre in Buckinghamshire; the government conceded flaws in the process and the lawsuit was dropped, with the developer now required to make environmental mitigations contractually binding.
- LSE report co-author Joana Setzer said the cases are not about stopping development but about preventing lock-in to fossil fuels, arguing litigation can force renewables adoption 'at the moment in time where that is possible.'
Why it matters: Datacentres, which already consume more than a fifth of Ireland's electricity, face a coordinated legal pushback that is forcing concessions — from halted projects in Chile to binding renewable mandates in California to admitted procedural flaws in the UK — even where courts don't rule in plaintiffs' favor. For hyperscale developers like Google and xAI, the takeaway is that permitting no longer shields them from climate scrutiny, and the LSE report signals courts are willing to treat datacentre energy and water footprints as actionable environmental harm.
