Amazon Says 2025 Emissions Rose 16% as AI-Linked Data Centers and Deliveries Expand

Amazon reported that its carbon emissions increased 16% in 2025 to about 81 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, a jump the company links to rising power demand from data centers and expanded delivery activity as it builds capacity for artificial intelligence workloads. The figures were highlighted in coverage of Amazon’s annual sustainability disclosure published around July 2, 2026.

The reporting ties the emissions increase to the company’s ongoing infrastructure expansion. Amazon has been adding data centers to support cloud services and AI-related computing, a process that also drives higher electricity consumption. One account of the disclosure said Amazon’s electricity purchases increased 34% last year, reflecting the scale of demand for the servers running AI and other data-heavy applications.

Amazon’s delivery operations also contributed to the emissions trend, according to the same coverage. More packages shipped generally means more fuel burned by trucks and planes, adding to the company’s overall footprint. The emissions story, as described in these reports, is therefore not only about how cloud infrastructure is powered, but also about how online retail logistics are scaling at the same time.

Amazon reaffirmed its long-term climate goal in connection with the disclosure, with reporting that the company aims to bring carbon emissions to near zero by 2040. At the same time, multiple articles characterized the 2025 results as a worsening path, citing a longer pattern where emissions had already stopped declining and were rising again before the 2025 acceleration.

Beyond greenhouse gases, the coverage also pointed to resource pressures tied to data center growth. One report said Amazon’s data centers withdrew about 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025, while noting that water use at directly owned sites was down about 2% and that efficiency improved to 0.03 gallons per kilowatt-hour consumed.

Separately, the reports said Amazon has earmarked roughly $150 billion for data center investments over the next 15 years, underscoring how central the infrastructure buildout is to the company’s AI and cloud ambitions. That spending, the accounts argue, is colliding with the reality that large-scale computing expansion can raise near-term emissions even when companies buy renewable electricity.

In the broader technology sector, the issue is increasingly common. Cloud providers and AI developers are racing to supply processing capacity, often requiring new facilities and power procurement that can outpace climate progress metrics in the short run. Amazon’s update illustrates how that tradeoff can show up in headline emissions totals, even when companies pursue renewable energy procurement and efficiency improvements.

Still, important details remain unclear without reviewing the full sustainability report itself. The coverage summarizes attribution themes and specific headline numbers, but it does not, in the articles cited here, lay out the complete methodology behind emissions categories, the balance between operational emissions versus indirect impacts, or how planned energy and offsets will affect the emissions trajectory year by year. What is known is the reported totals and the high-level explanations given in the coverage, not a granular breakdown of every driver.