Amazon admits it doesn't know how to hit its 2040 net-zero goal
The chief sustainability officer concedes there is no full decarbonization path, making the tension between AI power growth and climate pledges explicit.
Original event 2026-09-23
Amazon's chief sustainability officer Kara Hurst said at an Axios event that the company does not know how it will achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Per TechCrunch, Hurst said "we are still striving towards that target" but she is "not going to sit here and say, 'We know all the ways that we're going to do this.'" She confirmed The Climate Pledge commitment has not changed.
Amazon says it has been one of the world's largest purchasers of clean energy for several years, with 42 gigawatts in its portfolio, yet it was earlier this year reported to be planning a 7.65 gigawatt natural gas plant for an AI data center campus. The gap between an unchanged pledge and an unknown path is the signal to track.