Dear John,

The UK’s too hot. Most of us are in a drought. Energy prices are too high. We’re in a housing crisis. Meanwhile, vast data centres are being built throughout the UK and making all of these problems worse.

Data centres can heat up local towns, suck up lakes’ worth of scarce water and burn through masses of energy. And the government doesn’t have a plan. It needs to get a grip on data centres, now. Sign our petition to demand a pause on new data centres.

Data centres are the hot new thing (pun intended!) – they’re the underlying infrastructure for the AI boom. They’re vast, they’re massively resource intensive and they’re springing up everywhere.

This matters to every one of us. They’re already using 6% of the UK’s electricity – how do you think that impacts your bills? They’re linked to air pollution and they’re blocking new homes.

And many use masses of water to cool their thousands of always-on computers. That hosepipe ban and swimming pool ban doesn’t apply to the tech billionaires.

The UK government must get a grip. We want it to pause new data centres until it has:

1. A plan for how many data centres we need and what we need them for.
2. Clear rules on energy and water usage to protect clean water and renewables.
3. Proper accounting for how we measure data centres’ impact on climate and nature.
4. Transparent reporting on energy and water use by all data centres.

Please sign our petition today and ensure we have a plan for data centres that works for everyone, not just the billionaires.

Thanks

Kierra,

Campaigner, Friends of the Earth